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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/representativemeOOrobs 



REPRESENTATIVE 



MEN 



OF 



THE SOUTH. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

CHAS. ROBSON & CO. 
1880. 



it 






COPYRIGHT, BY CHAS. ROBSON, 1880. 



FERGUSON BROS. St CO.. 
ELECTROTYPEflS AND PRINTERS, 

PHILADELPHIA. 



Contents 



PAGE 

Aldnch, Alfred Proctor J 3* 

Anderson, William Henry.. J 3° 

Bagby, George William 43° 

Baldwin, William Owen 22 ° 

Battle, Kemp Plummer 37° 

Bayne, Thomas Levingston 4 8 9 

Beauregard, Pierre Gustave Toutant "8 

Belden, James Gridley 4°6 

Bemiss, Samuel M 5 2 7 

Bermudez, Edward Edmund 454 

Blackwcll, W. T . 5o6 

Bragg, Walter Lawrence 3°4 

Brown. Joseph. Emerson 158 

Campbell, Henry Fraser 2 °4 

Campbell, Robert 55* 

Carr,JulianS 507 

Carter, David Miller 4*8 

Chaille, Stanford Emerson in 

Chamberlayne, John Hampden 428 

Clopton, David 475 

Cochran, Jerome 384 

Colquitt, Alfred Holt 5 

Cox, William Ruffin 3© 1 

Curry, Jabez Lamar Monroe 287 

Daggett, David S 4 T 7 

Davidson, John Shelton 197 

Day, James Right 5°6 

Dugas, Louis Alexander 364 

Elmore, John Archer 402 

Engelhard, Joseph Adolphus 317 

Estes, Charles 290 

Fitzhugh, Edward Henry 286 

Foote, Henry Stuart . . 326 

Fuller, Thomas C 315 

Garnett, Alexander Yelverton Peyton 252 

Gartrell, Lucius J 94 

Gaston, John B 97 

Grissom, Eugene 271 

Gutheim, James Koppel 214 

Hagood, Johnson . . 78 

Hampton, Wade 245 

Haxall, Philip , 521 

Haxall, Richard B 519 

Haywood, E. Burke 523 

Heck, Jonathan McGee 250 

Heth, Henry 77 

Hofman, Abraham ■ 93 

Hunter, Robert Mercer Taliaferro 472 

Jarvis, Thomas J 522 

Johnson, John Milton 435 

Johnston, Joseph Eccleston 324 

Kemper, James Lawson 75 



Kennedy, Samuel Horton 416 

Ketchum, George Augustus 3 2 8 

King, John Pendleton , 83 

Langdon, Charles Carter 190 

Lawton, Alexander Robert 70 

Leaphart, Sherod Luther 482 

Lochrane, Osborne A 337 

Logan, Samuel 376 

Magrath, Andrew Gordon 318 

Manning, Thomas Courtland. 15 

Marr, Robert Hardin 277 

McGuire, Hunter Holmes 5 TO 

Memminger, Christopher Gustavus 33 

Meredith, John A 27S 

Merrick, Edwin T 494 

Moncure, Richard C. L 435 

fMoore, B. F 5*4 

Norwood, Thomas Manson 261 

Ould, Robert 3 1 

Palmer, Benjamin Morgan 357 

Pearson, Richmond Mumford 350 

Polk, Leonidas L 354 

Pope, Joseph Daniel ._. 347 

Porter, William Denison 151 

Pritchard, Thomas Henderson 373 

Rains, George Washington 420 

Randall, James Ryder 5°5 

Richardson, Tobias Gibson 406 

Ruffner, William. Henry 465 

Semmes, Thomas J 5 2 9 

Sibley, Josiah 49 1 

Sibley, William C 49 2 

Simons, James 483 

Sims, Robert M 44° 

Smedes, Aldert =89 

Smith, William Nathan Harrell 38 

Stewart, George Noble ■ 296 

Stokes, Allen Young 443 

Tucker, Rufus Sylvester 439 

Tucker, William Henry Haywood 43** 



'Vance, Zebulon B. 



292 



Wallace, Campbell 8 3 

Walton, James Burdge I 43 

t- Watts, Thomas Hill 4° 

Weatherly, Job Sobieski J 73 

Westmoreland, Willis Foreman 43 1 

Wheeler, Joseph 2 39 

Whittle, Francis McNiece 2 9 2 

Williams, George Walton l8 6 

Wiltz, Louis Alfred 444 

Wingate, W. M 3=3 

(3) 




^ 




'/-^<f ? ^±Z^ 



Representative Men 



of 



The South. 




1801. 



GOVERNOR COLQUITT, 

Georgia. 

LFRED Holt Colquitt was born in 
Walton Co., Ga., April 20th, 1824. 
His grandfather, Henry Colquitt, a 
farmer, was a native of Virginia, and 
moved into Georgia about the year 
His father, Walter T. Colquitt, a lawyer 
of Columbus, Ga., was, take him for all, perhaps 
the most brilliant man Georgia ever had : Judge 
of the Superior Court for over ten years, Member 
of Congress and United States Senator, his ver- 
satility was something wonderful. His mother 
was a Miss Lane, and her ancestors were of old 
Virginia stock, tracing their descent back to the 
time when Virginia was a colony. Peyton 
Colquitt, the brother of the subject of this 
sketch, was Secretary of the State Senate in 
1S56 and 1S57, and during the war a Colonel 
in the Confederate army: he was a strikingly 
handsome man, and had a brilliant future before 
him, when he was killed at the battle of Chick- 
amauga. Governor Colquitt's sister married 
Colonel Orlando B. Vickling, at that time a 
member of Congress for Illinois. 

Alfred H. Colquitt was prepared for college 
by Carlisle P. Beman, a distinguished scholar 
of his day, and entered Princeton College in 
1842, and having joined an advance class, grad- 
uated thence in 1S44. Among his classmates 



were Rev. Dr. Schenck ; Professor Walling, 
President of Columbia College, Washington, 
D. C. ; H. C. Chambers, of Mississippi, after- 
wards a member of the Confederate Congress ; 
and John H. Thomas, now a prominent lawyer 
of Baltimore. He studied law under his father 
at Columbus, was admitted to the bar in 1845, 
and commenced practice at Macon, where he 
remained until the outbreak of the war with 
Mexico in 1847, when he received the appoint- 
ment of Paymaster, with the rank of Major in 
the Staff Department. He served on the line 
of operations occupied by General Zachary 
Taylor on the Rio Grande, and as volunteer 
aide-de-camp to General Taylor participated in 
the battle of Buena Vista. On the termination 
of that war his was made an appointment in the 
regular army, but he resigned in 1848 and 
returned to the practice of his profession in 
Macon. On May 15th, 1848, he married Miss 
Dolly Tarver, daughter of General H. H. Tar- 
ver, an old militia officer of Twiggs Co., Ga. 
About this time he commenced planting on a 
large scale in Baker Co., S. W. Georgia, and 
afterwards became one of the planter princes of 
the State, having produced from his different 
plantations in one year no less than 1200 bales 
of cotton. In 1S52 he was elected to Congress 
from the Second Congressional District, and 
relinquished the practice of the law : having 
served one term, he was unanimously renomi- 

(5) 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



nated in 1854, but in consequence of the death 
of his wife and father declined the nomination. 
In 1856 he was elected a delegate to the Demo- 
cratic Convention at which James Buchanan 
was nominated, and in i860 was a delegate to 
the Democratic Convention, held at Baltimore, 
that nominated J. C. Breckenridge; he was 
also a Breckenridge elector. When the war 
broke out he entered the Confederate army as 
Captain of the Sixth Georgia, and was after- 
wards elected its Colonel. He was present with 
his command at Yorktown, Va., and partici- 
pated in all the battles of the Seven Days' Fight 
around Richmond, during which he was made 
Acting Brigadier-General in command of Gen- 
eral Rains' brigade. He took .part in the first 
campaign into Maryland, and was ordered to 
reinforce General J. E. B. Stuart, then at South 
Mountain, near Boonsboro. General McClel- 
lan was at that time making his move through 
Frederic towards Antietam, and his presence at 
that point was so unexpected by the Confederates 
that Stuart had left when the Federal forces 
came up. The first notice of the approach of 
McClellan's army was conveyed to General Lee 
by General Colquitt, and with one brigade of 
infantry and a battery of artillery he confronted 
for twenty-four hours the Federal forces as they 
came up by detachments until the Confederate 
army could be brought up. At the sanguinary 
battle of Sharpsburg which followed, he had his 
horse shot under him, and after the battle was 
made Brigadier General. He was engaged in 
all the battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, 
until the commencement of the Pennsylvania 
campaign, when he was ordered to Charleston. 
In one of the fights at battery Wagner he had a 
narrow escape from being shot, the ball passing 
through the crown of his hat. In Florida, at 
the battle of Olustee or Ocean Pond, he distin- 
guished himself greatly, and by his successful 
generalship completely defeated the Federals, 
and thus terminated their occupation of that 
part of the country, and saved Florida and the 
lower part of Georgia from devastation. His 
; illantry in that memorable fight obtained for 
him the title of the "Hero of Olustee:" he 



scmed to bear almost a charmed life as he rode 
on his white horse, a conspicuous object for the 
enemy's fire, and a Federal officer afterward 
stated that the soldiers' attention was specially 
directed to him, and that whole platoons fired 
at him at a time ; he escaped unhurt, however, 
although his horse was wounded. Returning to 
Virginia with General Beauregard, with whom 
he was a great favorite, he commanded a division 
at Drewry's Bluff. When General Grant trans- 
ferred his forces from the north to the south 
bank of the James river, with the view of 
investing Petersburg, General Colquitt's troops, 
with those of General Hagood, of South Caro- 
lina, were hastily moved to protect that city. 
The two Generals in their reconnoissance found 
no organized Confederate force between the city 
and General Grant's advance guard, and at 
night, without any knowledge of the surround- 
ing country, seated in a ditch to escape observa- 
tion, they, with the assistance of an old map 
and by the light of a candle, laid down the lines 
of defence and stationed their troops, Colquitt 
on the right and Hagood on the left. These 
afterwards became the permanent lines of forti- 
fication around the city, and that point became 
a noted position, and was known as " Colquitt's 
Salient." In recognition of his distinguished 
valor and meritorious service he was recom- 
mended for the appointment of Major-General ; 
but though it is understood that his commission 
was issued, in the confusion incident to the last 
days of the Confederacy it never reached his 
hands. 

After the war he returned to his plantations 
in Baker county, and being very popular with 
the colored people, their altered condition inter- 
fered but little with the regular work, most of 
his former slaves retaining their old positions, 
as many still do to this day. In iS6Shewasa 
delegate to the Democratic Convention held at 
New York at which Horatio Seymour was nom- 
inated, and was afterward a Seymour elector. 
In 1870 he was elected President of the State 
Democratic Nominating Convention, and on 
the same day, a totally unprecedented honor, 
was elected President of the State Agricultural 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Society, the most coveted position next to that 
of Governor in Georgia ; holding that office for 
six successive years, until he was elected to the 
Gubernatorial chair. In 1872 he was elected a 
delegate-at-large to the National Democratic 
Convention held in Baltimore at which Horace 
Greeley was nominated. In the fall of 1S76, 
after having repeatedly declined the honor pre- 
viously, he was nominated for Governor to suc- 
ceed Governor James M. Smith. Several names 
were canvassed and urged for nomination in 
opposition to him, among them Hon. Herschel 
V. Johnson, previously Governor for two terms, 
United States Senator, candidate for Vice-Pres- 
ident on the Douglas ticket,, and Confederate 
States Senator ; Hon. Thomas Hardeman ; Gen- 
eral L. J. Gartrell ; and John H. James, the 
well-known banker. The feeling in favor of 
General Colquitt, however, was so strong as to 
overcome all opposition, and the names of the 
other candidates having been withdrawn, he was 
nominated unanimously by one of the largest 
and most influential Conventions ever held in 
the State. He was elected by the unprecedented 
majority of 82,000, by far the largest ever cast 
for Governor in Georgia. 

In October, 1877, President Hayes visited 
Atlanta, and Governor Colquitt's eloquent ad- 
dress of welcome elicited the highest encomiums, 
not only in Georgia, but all over the North and 
West ; it was reproduced in the journals of 
every section with the most unstinted. praise for 
its admirable taste and high ability, being cor- 
dial without fulsomeness, hospitable without 
sycophancy, and manly without brusqueness. 
It fairly and justly represented the hospitality 
of a generous people, and yet in no way trans- 
cended the bounds of the most refined good 
taste. Secretary Evarts was heard to remark 
just after the Governor had closed his address 
of welcome — " I have not felt as happy in fifteen 
years." He said: "Mr. President, in behalf 
of the people of Georgia I bid you and your 
companions who are present a cordial welcome. 
We are in the habit of opening our hearts and 
our gates to strangers who come among us from 
beyond our borders, and to us the virtue of hos- 



pitality is its own exceeding great reward. 
Under any circumstances the hospitality of 
which we trust Georgia may justly boast would 
make the President of the United States heartily 
welcome upon our soil. But you, sir, come into 
our midst not as a President only. The vast 
interests over which you preside, the stupendous 
power which you wield as Chief Magistrate, the 
dignity with which your name is invested by 
that power, are not the sole ideas which move 
us in this greeting to-day. But that which is 
most prominent in our minds, higher and 
greater than every other distinction, is the char- 
acter you have illustrated — that of peace-maker 
between brethren estranged. It is enough to 
fill the measure of the loftiest ambition to 
remove fear and suspense from the hearts of 
twelve millions of people — your fellow-citizens 
— and restore to them a sense of repose and 
security. If the agencies which lately brought 
forty millions of people into fearful and unhappy 
conflict excited the attention of the whole world, 
the moral purpose, the firm will of the fortunate 
magistrate who is first to control and calm the 
spirit which raised this mighty strife, will attract 
the admiration and plaudits of the good every- 
where on earth where good-will to man prevails. 
How strange — how passing strange — that men, 
brethren of the same political heritage, can differ 
or doubt as to the beneficial effect of so holy an 
undertaking ! We invite you, Mr. President, 
to the closest scrutiny. We are not mistaken, we 
do not deceive ourselves, we do not intend to 
deceive ourselves, when we say we mean peace, 
we mean union, we mean good government — 
we mean to give a helping hand to any and to 
all who shall honor, bless and dignify the com- 
mon country. The great moving cause of these 
hearty demonstrations which have greeted you 
since you touched Southern soil is to be found 
in the generous confidence you have extended 
to our professions. We know, Mr. President, 
that you believe what we say, and your magnan- 
imous trust exacts no cringing, no servile guar- 
antees. Differ though we may in party affilia- 
tions, yet without thinking of complications or 
caring for them, we can assure you of the sym- 



s 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



pathy and support of this good old common- 
wealth in all your efforts in behalf of constitu- 
tional government and the complete restoration 
of good-will and fraternity between the States 
of this Union. Again, sir, let me assure you 
of the pleasure which your presence here to-day 
gives us, and of our ardent desire to make your 
visit, and that of your companions, pleasant 
while you stay with us. In this spirit, and in 
the name of the people, I bid you and your 
noble wife, these gentle ladies and honored 
gentlemen, a most cordial welcome." 

In April, 1878, the meeting of the Interna- 
tional Sunday School Convention was held at 
Atlanta, and was one of the ablest bodies of men 
that ever assembled. Their meetings were held 
in the First Baptist Church. Governor Colquitt 
was selected as the President of the Convention 
and delivered the address of welcome. His 
speech on taking the chair made a deep impres- 
sion, completely capturing the Convention, and 
his admirable tact and dignity during the entire 
week in which he presided over that body aug- 
mented the favorable opinion of the members to 
a perfect enthusiasm. It was something unusual 
that a public man in high office should so ardently 
identify himself with religious missions, and the 
members showed their sense of his zeal by elect- 
ing him the permanent presiding officer of the 
body. The selection of the Governor of Georgia 
for that position was a great compliment as well 
to him personally as to the State ; notwithstand- 
ing his official duties he was present at every 
session of the Convention, and received the dele- 
gates in the Executive Mansion with a warmth 
and heartiness which characterize Southern hos- 
pitality. Thirty-four States, two Territories, 
and the Canadas were represented at this meeting, 
and the statistics showed that at that time there 
was 7,651,696 members in the Sunday schools 
of the United States and Canada alone. A 
visitor who was pr;sent thus wri es to his friends : 
"A brave and honored leader in the field in a 
cause in which he sincerely believed, now de- 
votes his energies with equal sincerity and fidelity 
to the work of building up again. He accepts 
the new order of thines, and, though Governor of 



Georgia, he does not deem it beneath his position 
to be found frequently preaching the word in 
the colored churches in Atlanta." The friends 
which the Governor made in that Convention 
embraced names among the most distinguished 
in the several religious denominations, both in 
the United States and Canada. 

On April 30th, 1878, the annual celebration 
of Memorial Day, he laid the corner-stone of the 
Confederate Monument to be erected by the La- 
dies' Memorial Association at Macon, Ga., and 
in an earnest and eloquent speech, the noble and 
patriotic sentiments of which made a deep impres- 
sion, he said : " The South went to war for prin- 
ciple, and not from disgust or enmity to the old 
order of things; for the Constitution as inter- 
preted by the fathers, for the Constitution with 
its checks and balances, for the Constitution with 
its restraints upon power, its protection of the 
weak, its traditions and memories, every South- 
ern heart would have imperilled its life-blood. 
The war as made by the South was but a struggle 
to preserve the principles of that Constitution. 
. . . The day is fast approaching when men who 
once faced us with muskets in their hands will 
clasp us fraternally and admit that our hearts 
were right, and if we erred it was because we 
loved the rights of the State too sensitively and 
too well. From this point of departure let us 
take up the great and good work. With that 
sincerity and earnestness of soul which has ever 
marked our history in the midst of strong public 
interest let us prosecute the task of a complete 
restoration of peace. We will honor our dead 
— we will gather annually around their graves 
with a tribute of tears and flowers — we will 
cherish their memories and defend their names 
against the assaults of false accusers — we will 
raise monuments to transmit their fame to ages 
to come — this will we do in love for them 
and for the cause which perished with them. 
But we owe a debt to the living. The future as 
well as the past demands our concern. This is 
our country, here are the graves of our fathers, 
here will we be buried, here are our homes, 
here are our children. Let us seek to make the 
country a land of peace — to make our homes 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



peaceful and permanent, and our children happy, 
buoyant and hopeful. There should be no fur- 
ther strife between the sections. I will not 
believe that a people so committed to each other 
by the terms of a great compact, so bound to 
each other by moral and religious ties, will ever 
consent to see a part of this grand sisterhood of 
States only tolerated in its freedom, or bowed 
down in the shame and humiliation of unjust 
bondage. Let men who desire this have a care. 
Let the cruel and arrogant giant think a moment 
how long life can be endured if he is chained 
indissolubly to. a dead carcass. My friends, if 
you could prove unfaithful to the duty you owe 
to our common country in defending and per- 
petuating the rights of freemen, then of all men 
you will be the most culpable and the most mis- 
erable. The men whose memories we cherish 
by the noble monument you this day begin to 
erect, laid down their lives as they firmly be- 
lieved iiv defence of that interpretation of free- 
dom under our Constitution which was a tradition 
with us. All they hoped to accomplish by war 
was the preservation of such rights as the Con- 
stitution guaranteed. We this day and for all 
time will honor them most by upholding in all 
its strength and purity such a government as that 
Constitution has established. If they could 
speak from their serene heights they would bid 
us to forget and forgive, and with surviving 
comrades and surviving foes they would plead 
for peace, justice, and fraternity." 

In May, 1878, Governor Colquitt was a dele- 
gate from the North Georgia Conference to the 
Eighth General Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, held in Atlanta. On 
the presentation of the fraternal delegation from 
the African Methodist Church to the General 
Conference, an interesting incident occurred 
which exhibits the affection which the African 
race has always manifested for Governor Col- 
quitt. One of the colored speakers feeling 
parched from the excessive heat asked for a glass 
of water, and the Governor, with his usual cour- 
tesy, handed one to him. When this delegate 
was introduced by the Bishop to the Conference 
he said: "Let me state a circumstance which 



has just now occurred. When in the vestry there 
we were consulting your committees, among 
whom was your illustrious Christian Governor, 
the Hon. A. H. Colquitt. Feeling an unusual 
thirst, and expecting in a few minutes to appear 
before you, thoughtlessly I asked him for a glass 
of water to drink. He, looking about the room, 
answered, ' There is none ; I will get you some.' 
I insisted not, but presently it was brought and 
handed me by the Governor. I said, ' Governor, 
you must allow me to deny myself this distin- 
guished favor, as it recalls so vividly the episode 
of the warrior king of Israel, when with parched 
lips he cried from the rocky cave of Adullam, 
" Oh, that one would give me drink of the water 
of the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate." 
And when three of his valiant captains broke 
through the hosts of the enemy and returned to 
him with the water for which his soul was long- 
ing, regarding it as the water of life, he would 
not drink of it, but poured it out to the Lord. 
So may this transcendent emblem of purity and 
love from the hand of your most honored co- 
laborer and friend of the human race ever remain 
a memorial unto the Lord of the friendship ex- 
isting between the Methodist 'Episcopal Church, 
South, and the African Methodist Episcopal 
Church, upon the first exchange of fraternal 
greeting.' " 

In the same month the Gate City Guards of 
Atlanta visited Charleston, S. C, accompanied 
by Governor Colquitt. This visit, originally 
intended as one of a private nature for the pur- 
pose of drill and exercise under canvas, grew 
into the proportions of a grand parade, at which 
the troops and people of South Carolina gave a 
perfect ovation to their visitors from Georgia. 
Governors Hampton and Colquitt were present, 
and the reception of Georgia's Governor w-as no 
less enthusiastic than that accorded to the gal- 
lant Hampton. 

While in Charleston Governor Colquitt by 
special invitation visited the Confederate Home, 
where he addressed some feeling words to the 
young ladies ; and by special request delivered 
an address before the congregation of Trinity 
Methodist Episcopal Church, in which the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



deep earnestness of the speaker held his audi- 
ence spell-bound. 

On his return to Georgia he reviewed the 
colored troops at Savannah, on the occasion of 
the first State prize drill of colored companies 
ever witnessed in Georgia. Companies were 
present from Macon, Augusta, and Savannah, 
and the review was witnessed by five thousand 
colored people. 

At Savannah he attended the Convention of 
the Colored Baptist Sunday Schools at the Sec- 
ond African Baptist Church, and made one of 
his most impressive addresses, plain and frank, 
discussing the relations of the two races, and 
holding the immense throng with a growing in- 
terest — a simple, earnest, powerful and eloquent 
address, couched in language that all could 
understand. 

In June, 1878, he was present at the annual 
commencement of the Trinity Methodist Col- 
lege, N. C, and in an address before the 
Columbian and Hesperian Literary Societies, 
said: 

' In the South the whole effort seems to have 
been devoted to a physical regeneration. This 
was well as far as it went, but it did not cover 
the whole ground. The Southern autonomy 
before the war was in many respects a peculiar 
and noble one. I speak it in no invidious or 
vain-glorious spirit. Our people had honor, 
truth, courage, and genuine reverence for the 
good. They lacked mercantile shrewdness, 
perhaps, to some extent, but they possessed to 
the full mercantile integrity. They were prob- 
ably too quick to anger, over-munificent in 
hospitality, and given to excess of social pleas- 
ure. But these faults, if faults they were, were 
exaggerations of excellencies. They were some- 
times autocratic and hot-blooded, never subser- 
vient, mean or dastardly. They were restless 
under affront, but deceit and fraud were uncom- 
mon offences. They had the virtues and faults 
of hereditary gentlemen, pride of family and 
character, graces of transmitted culture, high 
honor, gentle chivalry, respect for women, rev- 
erence for God. They were a people of con- 
victions. Their public men were earnest states- 



men of patriotic purpose, defined policy, 
disinterested public spirit, and the enthusiasm 
that constitutes the most effective element of 
winning eloquence. In State and National 
counsels Southern representatives were distin- 
guished for stainless honesty and a firm adhesion 
to their convictions. The prosperity of the 
South was the direct result of her social polity 
and the agricultural character of her wealth and 
institutions. The war with its ruthless conse- 
quences has not simply undermined the very 
basis of morality and virtue, but in the South it 
has wrought a revolution so startling and 
exhaustive that the lover of the old times, the 
admirer of old institutions, can find but little 
familiar upon which his wearied eye can rest. 
All wealth gone, poverty made universal, the 
system of labor swept away, former customs and 
habits abandoned, new and different methods 
of labor and. subsistence imposed, new relation- 
ships of capital and labor established, new ideas 
in vogue; the new state of things is one so 
novel and strange that the survivors of the old 
regime, impoverished and bewildered, are 
stranded upon the new era hopeless and help- 
less. Wedded to the past, accustomed to the 
old, they find it difficult to conform to the new 
order of things which repels, antagonizes and 
shocks them. In sorrow, gloom, and almost in 
despair they are passing the remnant of their 

days The beginning of the work of 

public regeneration is in the home circle and 
the private character. Let us recall of the past 
its good; its institutions are gone; its schemes 
of social and public polity are gone ; its relations 
and methods are gone;, but its principles of 
virtue and practices of morality are in our grasp 
— they are imperishable. Public virtue is but 
the aggregate of individual virtue. The better 
days of the past to which our old men so fondly 
refer were simply the time when there were more 
individual instances of pure character and per- 
sonal integrity. Each one has his part to per- 
form in our deliverance from the evils of the 
day. Each one, however humble, can do some- 
thing in the noble work of restoring better 
times. Let us recall the old standards of honor; 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ii 



let us bring back the days when a gentleman's 
word was his bond, when the bargain of his con- 
victions was a crime, when truth was dearer 
than profit, when treachery and falsehood car- 
ried disgrace, when crime involved ostracism, 
when female virtue was the sacred object of 
guardianship for all brave men, when courtesy 
was deemed consistent with strength, and when 
the centre of all earthly happiness was found in 
the God-given paradise of home. But the work 
does not end here. What a field is there for 
the reformer in the administration of public 
affairs ! I have alluded to what I feared was the 
melancholy degeneracy of private sentiment; — 
the low grade of public morality is still more 
manifest. The spectacle in government for the 
last ten years has been something frightful. I 
do not mean that we have not had public men 
and representatives whose integrity, whose pur- 
ity, was above reproach and beyond suspicion, 
with whom the spirit of liberty and the love of 
truth remained uncorrupted and unextinguished. 
But the ruling spirit in public matters has been 
the inspiration of a corrupt demagogism. Party 
has usurped the throne of patriotism, political 
intrigue has supplanted statesmanship, place and 
not- public good is the motive to action. The 
grade of public morality has so degenerated that 
malfeasance in office carries no stigma if saved 
from its penalty by some ingenious technicality. 
Fraud and bribery are acknowledged weapons 
of political management. The public sense 
seems debauched by its familiarity with incidents 
of fraud and corruption. It greets revelations 
of infamy in its public servants with an apathy 
of resentment which is as significant of popular 
demoralization as the official crime. Public 
sentiment must be restored to that vigorous 
virtue which will strike crime with the thunders 
of its indignation. The pure practices of the 
Republic must be revived and the example of 
its statesmen enforced. The fountains of power 
must be purified. The pulpit, the school-room, 
the domestic altar, the press, must all be arrayed 
on the side of right in this mighty campaign. 
Society must be purified and elevated ; a higher 
intelligence, a sterner virtue must prevail; a 



nobler manhood must take the place of the sel- 
fish, scheming, profligate demagogues who crowd 
into the high seats of official life to plunder and 
ruin the country and degrade humanity." 

Many of the members of the Sunday School 
Convention who had visited Atlanta joined in 
an urgent request that Governor Colquitt should 
take part in the annual gathering of the friends 
of Sunday School work, held at Chautauqua, 
N. Y., and the invitation was accepted. The 
gathering took place at Fair Point, on Chau- 
tauqua Lake, near Lake Erie, in western New 
York, August 15th, 1878, and the hearty and 
considerate reception accorded the Governor 
was most unusual and striking. After the years 
of bitterness and strife which had divided and 
estranged the North and South, it was a fact 
well calculated to cause peculiar gratification to 
witness the demonstrations of national unity and 
fraternization beginning in Atlanta at the great 
Sunday School Convention, and finding its most 
energetic expression at Chautauqua on the occa- 
sion of Governor Colquitt's visit. Thousands 
of people were present from the neighboring 
States, and the occasion was one of unalloyed 
pleasure to all. Addresses of welcome were 
delivered by Dr. Vincent and Bishop Foster, 
of Boston, the latter of whom said: "It is not 
the welcome of the North to a distinguished 
Southern gentleman and statesman. It is not 
the welcome of one section of the country to a 
citizen of another section of the country; but it 
is the welcome of a nation's gathering to a 
nation's citizen. This assembly differs from all 
other assemblies that I have visited in my public 
life of forty years. It is not like the old-fash- 
ioned camp gathering where people of a peculiar 
locality or particular section gather together 
specifically for religious purposes, for evangelism, 
for building themselves up in faith, for reclaim- 
ing and recovering their brothers and their chil- 
dren and their husbands and their parents from 
sin to practices of holiness, and yet it is charac- 
teristically a religious assembly. It is an assem- 
bly of thoughtful, earnest, studious minds, in 
pursuit of truth — earnest for the acquisition of 
knowledge. The distinctions which are given 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



to men in "this place are distinctions because of 
some service that they have rendered to the race, 
or which they are supposed to be capable of ren- 
dering to the studious and thoughtful audience 
that gathers here at early morning and remains 
until late at night for twenty days. There is 
not the like of it anywhere, so far as I am in- 
formed or my observation has extended either 
in our own nation or any other Christian nation, 
or any other nation upon the face of the globe. 
There is no political significance in this gather- 
ing or in this hour. It is not because of even 
the political distinction which our guest has 
honorably and honestly won for himself; it is 
not because he has attained to the honorable 
position of Governor of one of the great States 
of this Union that you accord him this magnifi- 
cent welcome. It is indeed a high distinction : 
you recognize it. Were he simply a private 
citizen it might not have been accorded to him, 
and yet it was not because of this distinction 
that you are here to render him this honor and 
this welcome. In this assembly, your Excel- 
lency, the only passport to esteem and respecta- 
bility and respect is that of an honorable and 
noble character wrought into a useful and holy 
life. You are welcomed here because of your 
personal excellence and because of your private 
character — because of what we have learned of 
you as a husband, as a father, as a citizen, as a 
Christian, even more than the fact that you are 
the Governor of the distinguished State over 
which you preside." 

Governor Colquitt, in reply, said : 
"The voice from the South which I feel I 
may be commissioned to speak in tin's presence 
is that there is a need all over these States for a 
higher, purer, more elevated standard of morality 
and religion, and that there is need of a more 
profound and universal feeling of fraternity. 
We must as Christians and as statesmen rise to 
the recognition of the overmastering fact that 
this Union must be a ligament of love. The 
broad realms of history are full of instruction. 
Our own national experiences furnish timely and 
valuable admonition. The gospel of love is the 
statesmanship fur severed and estranged sections. 



The philosophy of true and permanent reconcil- 
iation is kindness. Apply it to the relationship 
of the sections and all the sectional difficulties 
will disappear, the rule of passion will end, the 
trickery of demagogues will be powerless, the 
love of country will be permanent, the pride of 
nationality will be restored, and we shall have a 
pure, happy, and virtuous people. Let the 
National Union typify a Christian Union and 
be its synonym." 

The administration of Go%'ernor Colquitt has 
been singularly successful in winning the confi- 
dence of the colored people, and has had a 
marked effect in breaking down their groundless 
prejudices. His firm, kind, and just course 
towards them has been the means of bringing 
them to a true perception of their relation to 
their white fellow-citizens. 

In the fall of 1878 the colored people of 
Liberty county invited Governor Colquitt to 
visit them, in connection with a meeting of 
their Sunday School Convention, in the follow- 
ing terms : 

"To His Excellency, Governor Colquitt, of 
Georgia, greeting: — At a meeting of a general 
committee from the various committees of the 
colored people of Liberty county and adjoining 
counties, it was proposed to invite your Excel- 
lency to visit our county and people with a 
view to a cordial acquaintance and the hearing 
of your fraternal counsels. The. proposition 
was received with enthusiasm, and adopted by a 
unanimous resolution. 

''The undersigned committee was appointed 
to draft this letter of invitation to assure you of 
the earnest desire of our people for your visit, 
and a hearty welcome to our midst. It is an 
honor that this old county never before received, 
and it would be especially appreciated by your 
colored fellow-citizens as a cordial recognition 
of their new citizenship, and an encouragement 
to their efforts to become better and wiser 
citizens, and to take their place honorably by 
the side of their white fellow-citizens. And we 
believe that the visit of our beloved and honored 
Governor would increase and cement the kindly 
friendship already prevailing between us and our 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



13 



white brethren. We are particularly happy that 
our Governor is a Christian man whose influence 
in our country and State will be for 'peace on 
earth and good-will among men.' 

"We entreat your Excellency, therefore, to 
give this invitation your kind consideration, 
and to meet us and our children in the ancient 
Midway ground, on Thursday, October 17th, 
1878, at ten o'clock a. m. And we pray that 
our common Lord will have you in His keeping, 
to strengthen your health, to aid you with wise 
counsellors, and to make your term of office a 
happiness to yourself and a blessing to the State 
of Georgia. In behalf of our several commit- 
tees we remain your cordial friends and fellow- 
citizens." 

The letter was signed by members representing 
the Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist and Con- 
gregational committees. In response to this 
invitation the Governor visited Liberty county, 
and addressed the colored people, who assembled 
in great numbers to meet him, and gave him a 
most enthusiastic reception. 

It is an unfortunate peculiarity of political 
life that calumriy is the inevitable accompani- 
ment. No purity of character or rectitude of 
conduct seems proof against the poison of the 
slanderer. The annals of public service swarm 
with instances of pure and noble men suffering 
unjust detraction. It would almost appear the 
rule that the more conspicuous the public eleva- 
tion, and the more shining the excellence of a 
public man, the more surely is he liable to 
become the victim of aspersion. Aristides was 
banished because of his goodness. It is related 
of him that he met a voter unacquainted with 
him who requested him to write his vqte of 
banishment against Aristides. Aristides asked 
him why he wished Aristides banished. The 
man replied, because he is called "just." The 
incident embodies the venomous philosophy of 
this poor, miserable disposition of humanity to 
pull down its exemplars of worth. 

Governor Colquitt in his varied experiences 
of an almost uniform distinction and marvellous 
popularity has not escaped the bitterness of cal- 
umny. One might have readily supposed that his 



life-long Christian piety and luminous record of 
worth would have saved him this anguish. His 
life, so beautiful in its religious lustre, and his 
character, so spotless in its every phase and as- 
pect, might well have been deemed slander-proof 
against any possible malignity. But the ordeal 
that seems inevitable to all pure public men 
came to him. It has, in some respects, been ' 
fortunate for him. Coming out of the fire un- 
scathed, the very trial has but shown more 
resplendently the radiant integrity of the man, 
and seated him more firmly than ever in the 
hearts of the people who seem so delighted to 
honor him. 

The calumny against Governor Colquitt has 
been an illustration of what a large matter can 
grow out of a most inconsequential cause. In 
the light of the developed facts, after a most 
tedious investigation, it is ridiculously farcical 
that the calumny should have had a moment's 
existence. 

The Governor, among the earliest matters 
called to his attention, had pressed upon him 
the endorsement of the bonds of the North 
Eastern Railroad. The road runs from Athens, 
Ga., to the Carolina line. It was chartered in 
1870, and State aid granted to it at the rate of 
$20,000 per mile, the State to endorse its bonds 
whenever twenty miles were done. In 1874 
the Legislature repealed all of the State aid 
grants, except where the roads had gained vested 
rights by the investment of money to get State 
aid. The same Legislature passed a resolution 
excepting the North Eastern Railroad from the 
repeal. Upon the assurance of the Governor of 
Georgia that the aid would be granted when the 
law was complied with, the company went for- 
ward and incurred expense to complete forty 
miles of the road. When Governor Colquitt 
came into office the railroad company applied to 
him to endorse the bonds. He referred the 
company to the Legislature, but that body did 
not have time to act. Before the next General 
Assembly met the creditors of the road brought 
suit, and the issue came up distinctly before the 
Governor to endorse the bonds or let the road 
be sacrificed. Under his official duty he en- 



i4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



dorsed the bonds at the rate of $6,500 per mile, 
or less than one-half the amount of private capi- 
tal, and saved the loss of the road. The act 
was universally endorsed by the press and pub- 
lic men of the State, and met universal popular 
approval. 

Some time afterwards there were whispers 
that the Governor had taken money to endorse 
the bonds. This shocking slander gathered 
force, insidiously circulated. The Legislature 
assembled, and the Governor sent to that body 
a message that must rank in all coming time as 
the finest specimen of the kind ever penned. 
It would be difficult to conceive a more ringing, 
eloquent document, blazing with the fire of an 
outraged honor, and glowing with the intensity 
of its self-conscious honesty. The paper is so 
remarkable that it deserves publication. 

SFECIAL MESSAGE. 
" Executive Department, Atlanta, Ga. 
"Nove?nber 6th, 1878. 
"To the General Assembly : 

"A grievous necessity has been imposed upon 
me to demand at your hands a thorough in- 
vestigation of my motives and conduct as the 
Executive of Georgia, in placing the State's 
endorsement upon the bonds of the North 
Eastern Railroad. This necessity has been 
created by widely circulated slanders and innu- 
endoes, vile and malignant, and so mendacious 
and wicked as to make all comment and para- 
phrase upon them utterly futile. Nothing but a 
thorough sifting of my every motive and act in 
regard to these bonds, as far as human insight 
and judgment can reach these, can satisfy an 
aggrieved honor or give such assurance to the 
people of Georgia as they have a right to de- 
mand in the premises. To a man who values 
his good name far more than life it would be an 
act of supremest injustice to deny the most 
plenary vindication, rendered in the most august 
and authoritative form known to the law or 
to public opinion. 

"To the people of this great commonwealth 
it is of the last consequence that they should 
know, beyond all peradventure, that the man 
who fills at their call the chief seat of authority 
is above reproach or suspicion. 

" My denunciation of an awful and stupen- 
dous slander, forged and uttered to dishonor 
me, will not be enough. The General Assembly 
of the State, a co-ordinate power, is appealed to 



for that justice which, while it will, I know full 
well, exonerate me as a man, will also vindicate 
the fair fame of Georgia, assailed by cruel slan- 
ders on her chief Executive." 

This powerful document, the very language 
of an incensed innocence, stirred a warm re- 
sponse of feeling approval and sympathy in the 
General Assembly. A committee of thirteen 
of the best members was immediately appointed. 
The investigation continued a month, covering 
every rumor or shade of rumor. The Governor 
went through it with a sublime patience. As 
the utter emptiness of the slander became appa- 
rent, a sentiment of indignation began to arise, 
and the thunders of public displeasure com- 
menced to assail those who had been so ready 
to traduce a stainless gentleman and a noble 
official. It was shown that the whole thing had 
resulted in a personal contest about a fee, and 
that the endeavor was made to drag the unsullied 
and unstainable integrity of the Executive into 
the contest as an element of its settlement. It 
was a hard ordeal for a proud man. It was a 
cruel and wanton attempt at calumniation for an 
ignoble purpose. But it broke down so com- 
pletely that its ultimate effect has been a more 
solid establishment of the Governor in the 
popular confidence. The parties engaged in 
the matter were compelled to change the attack. 
None were louder than they in asserting confi- 
dence in the Governor's integrity, and they 
denied ever having questioned his purity of 
purpose or honesty of act. The committee 
unanimously exonerated the Governor. The 
Legislature passed resolutions of unshaken con- 
fidence. In the serenity of his Christian spirit, 
the Governor has accepted his overwhelming 
vindication and the crushing discomfiture of his 
enemies with the same lofty dignity and impres- 
sive manhood that form the substratum of his 
character, and that ever mark his conduct. 

Governor Colquitt possesses perhaps more of 
the elements of leadership than any man in 
Georgia, and the high rank he has attained in 
political, agricultural, and religious circles, evi- 
dence the ability, judgment and discretion 
which he brings to bear upon every subject. 





'Us^k^W 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



*5 



From his youth up he has been distinguished 
for morality and modest worth. As a states- 
man, sagacious, honest, and patriotic ; as a sol- 
dier, of unobtrusive but heroic courage, gaining 
his rapid and his well-deserved promotion by 
thorough efficiency; as a Christian, of deep, fer- 
vent, tireless piety, an active member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and an un- 
ceasing worker in Sunday-school and church. 
Possessing unusual oratorical power, he is a 
facile and eloquent speaker. Unprejudiced, 
dispassionate and farsighted, he had the courage 
from the first to accept the situation, and accord 
to the colored race all they were entitled to, 
and from the deep interest he has ever taken in 
their welfare and advancement, he is to-day al- 
most idolized by the African race. Of winning 
amiability yet firmest decision every Georgian 
may justly feel proud of one who has in war 
and in peace battled for the old Commonwealth 
and a common country. Governor Colquitt 
was married a second time on July 23d, 1S56, 
to Mrs. Sarah B. Tarver, the widow of Freder- 
ick Tarver, a planter and gentleman of great 
wealth, formerly of Twiggs county, Georgia. 
His daughter by his first marriage is the wife 
of Captain T. F. Newell, of Milledgeville, and 
he has five children by his second wife- 



CHIEF JUSTICE MANNING. 
Louisiana. 

'homas courtland manning, 

now Chief Justice of Louisiana, is a na- 
tive of North Carolina. He was born 
at Edenton, a village in the Eastern 
part of the State, situated on Edenton 
Bay, a shy and lovely nook of Albemarle Sound. 
The town is not only remarkable for its topogra- 
phical beauties, but is further noted as the pos- 
sessor of a bit of the modern antiquity of our 
country. There yet stands within its precincts, 
and in good preservation, the Episcopal Church 
of St. Paul, which was built by the London 
"Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 




Foreign Parts," nearly a century and a half ago. 
Young Manning attended the schools at Eden- 
ton until qualified for entrance into college, and 
then matriculated at the University of North 
Carolina, where he remained until he completed 
his collegiate education. His affection for his 
University has been deep and steadfast, an r l 
she, like a true Alma Mater, has requited his 
love, and crowned him with the highest honors 
in her power to bestow. 

Soon after the close of his university course 
he commenced the study of law, and at the end 
of many months of deep and diligent reading, 
passed a successful examination before the Su- 
preme Court of North Carolina, and was licensed 
by them to practise his profession 

He began his career as a lawyer in his native 
town, and rode what was then, and is now called, 
the Edenton circuit. But this was only for a short 
while. Actuated by that spirit of adventure, 
which has made the Southwest debtor to the 
old North State for so many of its able men, in 
all the walks of intellectual life, he immigrated 
to Louisiana, and in the latter part of Decem- 
ber, 1855, located at Alexandria, where he has 
ever since resided. Alexandria, at that time, 
was the centre of a wealthy, cultivated, and pop- 
ulous community, and the young stranger from 
Carolina found himself not only congenially at 
home, but also with a fertile professional field 
spreading around him. It was not long before 
so vigorous a sickle as his found an abundant 
harvest. 

His handsome presence, his grave but cour- 
teous address, his scholarly acquirements, his 
commanding eloquence, and the high and im- 
pregnable basis of character underlying these 
advantages of mind and person, soon attracted 
to him a large circle of influential friends. 
Business sought him almost at once ; his clien- 
telle grew with a steady and permanent growth, 
and when our political troubles culminated in 
1 86 1 in civil war, he enjoyed a large and lucra- 
tive practice, and was the acknowledged leader 
of the bar in his section of the State. 

With his ardent temper, his warm sympathies, 
his aptitude for affairs, and his eminent capacity 



i6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



as a speaker, it was impossible for him to keep 
aloof from the political contests in the State 
and nation. But, although taking a lively in- 
terest and an active share in all those contests, 
he never sought, and often declined political 
preferment. His love of personal freedom, his 
imperious pride, and his sesthetic tastes peculiar- 
ly unfitted him for the yoke of the political office- 
holder. He himself had a clear recognition of 
this incompatibility, and the knowledge nerved 
him to resist the opened door to the arena of 
politics, which more than once tempted him. 

From early manhood he was a Democrat of 
the States rights school, and in 1861 was chosen 
a member of the convention which was called to 
consider and readjust the relations of Louisiana 
with her sister States. He was a prominent and 
active member of that convention, and voted 
for the ordinance of secession. Shortly after 
the adjournment of the convention he volun- 
teered in and was elected a Lieutenant of the 
first military company raised in his, (Rapides) 
parish. 

Immediately thereafter he was tendered and 
accepted the position of aide-de-camp on the 
staff of Governor Moore, of Louisiana, with the 
rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In May, 1861, he 
accompanied the Governor to the city of New 
Orleans, and remained on his personal staff until 
the summer of 1863, when he was appointed 
Adjutant-General of the State, with the rank of 
Brigadier-General. From his appointment on 
the Governor's staff until 1S64, General Man- 
ning contributed in a large measure to the success 
of the former's administration, in its civil as 
well as in its military department. No plan was 
adopted, no movement conducted, and no docu- 
ment was issued by the Executive, which were 
not strongly impressed, if not entirely conceived 
and shaped by the aide and the Adjutant- 
General. 

The office of Attorney-General, made vacant 
in 1 86 1 by the election of the incumbent, Mr. 
Thomas J. Semmes, to the Confederate Senate, 
was tendered by the Governor to Colonel Man- 
ning and declined by him. 

In January, 1864, General Henry W. Allen, 



who had succeeded Governor Moore in office, 
appointed General Manning Associate Justice of 
the Supreme Court, which was then presided 
over by Chief Justice Merrick. The venerable 
ex-Chief now occupies a prominent place at the 
New Orleans bar, and bids fair to enjoy the 
honorable fame and competence he has won for 
many years to come. 

Judge Manning held his position on the Su- 
preme Bench until the close- of the war, and in 
the summer of 1865 returned to Alexandria, 
and resumed the practice of his profession. 

From 1865 to 1870 was the golden harvest- 
time of the Louisiana lawyers. A large portion 
of the State had been overrun and for a long 
while occupied by a hostile soldiery, and nearly 
every section not thus occupied was invaded by 
bands of military marauders, dispatched to 
harass, depredate, and destroy. In many of the 
districts where these occupations and incursions 
prevailed the civil tribunals were dominated and 
disorganized, and in others but very inadequately 
performed their functions. In consequence of 
this the administration of justice was partially 
suspended, so that when civil rehabilitation took 
place in 1865 there was an immense arrears of 
legal work awaiting the return of the lawyers. 

In addition to this the war itself had bred 
many novel questions of law, which had to be 
litigated, and judicially settled. Questions that 
were not merely curious and difficult, but which 
involved immense interests. The questions of 
slaves, and of Confederate money, as the bases of 
contracts ; the binding effect of agreements with 
enemies, and of agreements looking to the aid 
and comfort of "rebels," were among those 
evolved by the war, and in the solution of which 
one-half of the property values of the State was 
embraced. 

It thus happened that when Judge Manning 
returned to the practice in 1S65, he was con- 
fronted by a mass of business that would have 
daunted a less valiant worker. But he tackled 
it manfully, and without a partner, and if he 
had been as diligent to collect as he had been to 
earn his fees for the succeeding ten years, he 
could have retired in opulence from the bar. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



i7 



From 1865 to his second elevation to the Su- 
preme Bench, he adhered strictly to his profes- 
sional occupations, although always taking an ac- 
tive and leading part in the political movements 
looking to the liberation of the State from radi- 
cal dominion. 

In 1872 he was a delegate to the Democratic 
State Convention, and after the adjournment of 
that body and its failure to agree with the Con- 
vention of the "Reform Party" on a common 
ticket, he was elected to the Convention of the 
"Liberal Party," which assembled shortly 
thereafter, and which finally agreed with the 
representatives of the Democratic party on a 
ticket which offered McEnery for Governor, and 
Penn for Lieutenant-Governor. 

Judge Manning refused to permit his name to 
be proposed for nomination, for Governor, in 
the Democratic Convention, and subsequently, 
in the Liberal Convention, when his name was 
actually proposed, he arose in his seat and 
withdrew it, absolutely refusing to be balloted 
for. 

Speaking of the Democratic Convention of 
1872, reminds the writer that it was in that 
Convention that he first heard Judge Manning 
speak. The Convention was holding its ses- 
sions at the Opera House in New Orleans, and 
our political condition at the time was so des- 
perate that the proceedings of the Convention 
were watched with uncommon interest. Among 
the large outside crowd which thronged the 
dress circle of the Opera House one hot after- 
noon, the writer was fanning himself with his 
hat, and yawning over the platitudes of several 
of the delegates, who were talking with a pain- 
ful absence of vocation for the business, when 
suddenly a tall figure, with broad shoulders, 
clean flanks, massive brows, and dark eyes 
burning under them, came from the rear of the 
proscenium and stood before the foot-lights. 
He was silent for a moment, and in that mo- 
ment a sort of hush fell on the Convention. 
Sympathizing vaguely with the comparative 
quiet below, the peanut crowd around me 
cracked their provender less audibly, so that 
I had a fair chance to hear. The unknown 



speaker commenced in a familiar, almost collo- 
quial style, talking quietly, with easy self-pos- 
session, standing in one position, and rarely 
employing a gesture. As he proceeded traces 
of repressed emotion came out, and as he 
warmed with his theme his voice became reso- 
nant and vibratory; images came up and 1 ' 
floated on the current of his argument, and 
his words fell into periods having almost the 
poise and balance of blank verse. His remarks 
were obviously extemporaneous, and yet they 
were characterized by an aptness of illustration, 
a compression' of thought and a felicity of dic- 
tion which are the offspring, as a rule, of 
painful elaboration. The speech was full of 
matter, and after what had gone before, its 
compact logic and its well-ordered rhetoric 
were doubly enjoyable. I forgot the heat for 
the thirty minutes he was speaking, and I ob- 
served that one or two of my peanut neighbors 
had actually suspended hostilities. 

Could the possible in eloquence have gone 
further than that ? 

"Who in the devil is he?" I profanely in- 
quired of General Gibson, as the unknown 
retired from the foot-lights. 

" Why that," said he, " is Tom Manning, of 
Rapides." 

In 1S72 Judge Manning was made Presidential 
Elector for the State at large, and in 1S76 
he was selected as a delegate for the State at 
large to the National Democratic Convention 
which met at St. Louis. He was a warm advo- 
cate of Mr. Tilden, and earnestly supported him 
for the nomination. 

In the first week of January, 1877, while 
quietly pursuing his profession, he received a 
brief communication requesting his presence in 
the city of New Orleans. 

Arriving at New Orleans, he was informed by 
General Nicholls that the high place of Chief 
Justice had been set apart for him, and w r ould be 
tendered to him as soon as the General had 
qualified as Governor. Would he accept the 
place? 

He answered in the affirmative, but that he 
did answer in the affirmative was not, everything 



i3 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



considered, so much a matter of course as might 
at first blush appear. It is true that the salary 
of the place was large, the term of encumbency 
long, the office the highest in the gift of the 
State, and the ultimate goal of legal ambition. 
And yet, under all of the circumstances then 
obtaining, it required more than ordinary cour- 
age for a lawyer of high reputation, in full prac- 
tice, and at the head of a dependent family, to 
accept the office of Chief Justice of Louisiana. 
The times were out of joint. The air was thick 
with the breath of storms. Two rival political 
factions, each formidable in numbers, each 
thoroughly organized and armed, each wrought 
up to fever heat, and each inflexibly bent on vic- 
tory, contended for mastery. Wealth, intelli- 
gence, majority and right were on the side of 
the Democrats, headed by Nicholls. But be- 
hind the sooty crew of Republicans, led by 
Packard, there loomed up in a nebulous but 
threatening way, the military power of the 
United States. That power had once been 
unconstitutionally employed to crush civil lib- 
erty in Louisiana, and the probabilities were 
that it would be again. To accept high office 
from Nicholls at that time, therefore, seemed 
like advertising one's self for immolation. It 
was taking imminent risks of humiliation and 
official destruction. Judge Manning took the 
risks, with a full realization of all their possible 
consequences, and on the day of Nicholls's in- 
auguration, received his commission as Chief 
Justice of Louisiana. 

The installation of the Supreme Judges ap- 
pointed by Governor Nicholls was probably the 
most dramatic event that has ever occurred in 
any court-room of this country. As such, it is 
worthy of a detailed description. 

The night of the 8th of January, 1877, was, 
without metaphorical exaggeration, big with the 
fate of Louisiana. That day had witnessed the 
inauguration of Francis T. Nicholls, in the 
presence of about three acres of delighted 
spectators. The great mass of those spectators 
were transported by the impressive ceremonial 
they had witnessed, and vented their joy in fre- 
quent and enthusiastic expressions of satisfac- 



tion. But the more thoughtful of them remem- 
bered that, only four years before, the inaugura- 
tion of McEnery had been attended by just as 
large a concourse, and was greeted by an en- 
thusiasm just as general and intense; and yet 
that the Government then set up by the people 
of Louisiana had been overthrown by judicial 
proceedings immortal in their infamy, and ruth- 
lessly enforced by the bayonet. Was the 
Government of Nicholls doomed to a similar 
fate? 

The consultation held in the executive office 
on the night of the 8th of January was the 
turning-point of its 'fortunes. Had one sug- 
gestion of incautious counsel prevailed, had a 
single mistake then been made, all would have 
been lost, and Nicholls the Governor would 
have been converted into Nicholls the Claimant. 

The persons called to this consultation were 
the civil and military officers of the new Gov- 
ernment, and a number of trusted, patriotic 
citizens. 

Some of the results flowing from the action 
of that council were visible at the earliest dawn 
of January the 9th. The streets were thronged 
with armed men hurrying to places of rendez- 
vous, some of them belonging to organized com- 
panies, and others not enrolled, but ready to fall 
into rank at the word of command. By eight 
o'clock a. M. six thousand State troops were 
under arms, and two hours later their number 
was nearly doubled. In command of these was 
the heroic Ogden, whose matchless valor made 
the 14th of September memorable, and on 
whom and his peerless League Louisiana now 
leaned with all her weight. 

At first the impression prevailed that the St. 
Louis Hotel, which had been recently bought 
for and was then used as a State House, was to 
be assaulted. This impression, however, was 
wholly without foundation, as no such purpose 
had ever been entertained. 

In this hotel, the day before, the farce of in- 
augurating Packard as Governor had been 
enacted in the presence of a rabble of negroes, 
carpef-baggers and scalawags, which he ad- 
dressed, with heartless irony, as the "General 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



19 



Assembly of Louisiana." Barricades had been 
erected around the lower story of the Hotel, 
which prevented the ingress of any but this mot- 
ley drove, and the armed police force, known as 
the Metropolitans. 

Nicholls had secured office-rooms for his gov- 
ernment officials up-town, above Canal street. 
The St. Louis Hotel is below Canal street, and 
about mid-way from Canal, by the way of Royal, 
or Chartres street, to the Court Buildings. 
Those buildings front on the old Place D 'Amies, 
now called Jackson Square, and occupy sites 
above and below the Cathedral. The building 
below is assigned to the use of the District 
Courts, and was in the possession of the Judges 
holding under the Nicholls Government. The 
building above contains the Supreme Court- 
room, and was in the hands of a body of Metro- 
politans, who had taken possession of it and 
made prisoner of the Deputy Sheriff in charge. 
Three persons styling themselves, under color 
of commissions from Packard, the Supreme 
Court of the State, had that morning been ad- 
mitted by the Metropolitans into the Supreme 
Court building through a rear alley-way. They 
entered the court-room, and, taking their seats 
on the Bench, commanded the venerable crier, 
General John L. Lewis, to open the court. He 
refused deferentially, but firmly, announcing 
that he recognized Governor Nicholls as the 
Executive of Louisiana; that he observed by 
the morning papers that Governor Nicholls had 
appointed a Supreme Court, and that he would 
obey the mandates of that Court, and that Court 
alone. 

General Lewis was instantly removed from 
office by the soi-disant Judges, and a person of 
their own kidney appointed in his stead. 

After a five minutes' session of the mock 
Court, the three judicial claimants adjourned 
themselves and were let out of the building 
through the same sequestered way by which 
they had entered. They absconded none too 
soon. The old Place D' 'Amies was agleam 
with the rifles of the patriot soldiers, who, ever 
since dawn, had been steadily gathering to Og- 
den's standard. In their midst sat Ogden him- 



self, with one leg thrown carelessly over the 
pummel of his saddle, looking very calm and 
polite, but with a mighty ugly fire smouldering 
in the depths of his gray eyes. Every street 
leading to the court building was heavily occu- 
pied by detachments of State troops, and near- 
est the building were a body of picked men, 
Ogden's pets, a thousand strong, armed to the 
teeth, and sworn in by the Sheriff as special 
deputies. 

Shortly before n o'clock A. M. the Sheriff of 
the Parish, Thomas H. Handy, demanded pos- 
session of the Supreme Court room, and was 
refused. The parley took place at the massive 
iron gate which closes the main entrance to the 
building, and which had been locked, bolted 
and barred by the Metropolitans. The Sheriff 
reminded them that he was the legal custodian 
of the building, and that they were there with- 
out lawful warrant. Their answer was that 
Packard had sent them there, with orders to 
hold the building against all comers. 

The Sheriff then announced his determination 
to take the building at whatever cost. He pro- 
mised that if the place was peaceably surren- 
dered the occupants should have safe conduct 
to Packard, but warned them that if an appeal 
to force became necessary, not a Metropolitan 
would escape alive. He pointed his argument 
by a persuasive gesture in the direction of his 
deputies. 

To the Metropolitan mind the argument 
seemed so conclusive that the discussion ceased, 
and the door opened. 

Posting a guard in the building, the Sheriff 
immediately proceeded to the Governor's quar- 
ters, where had assembled the newly appointed 
Judges, consisting of Chief Justice Manning 
and Associate Justices Marr, DeBlanc, Egan and 
Spencer. 

The loiterers on the banquettes then witnessed 
a strange and not unimposing sight. The new 
Judges were walking in procession to their 
court-room. The Sheriff and Clerk of the 
Court were abreast in front, the Chief Justice 
at a little distance in their rear, and behind him 
followed the two Senior, and then the two Junior 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Justices. Out of Camp street, over Canal, and 
down Chartres they walked with slow and 
stately pace, and as they appeared in sight of 
Jackson Square, the dense mass of citizen sol- 
diers and citizens ready to become soldiers, 
waved and heaved with suppressed excitement, 
until, as the Chief Justice, whose towering form 
was readily discerned above the crowd, passed 
through the portal of the court building, re- 
straint was no longer possible, and the shouts 
of fifteen thousand voices rang out the accom- 
plishment of the first and vital act of Louisiana's 
deliverance. 

The five Judges immediately ascended the 
Bench, and in obedience to an order of the 
Chief Justice, General Lewis, who had been 
verbally decapitated one hour before, opened 
the Court in due form. 

From that day forth the Court held sessions 
regularly and unintermittingly, and it is now 
apparent to all, as it was then to the sagacious 
advisers who counselled it, that the immediate 
installation of the Supreme Court was an abso- 
lute necessity. Had the delay cf a single day 
supervened, the whole fabric of the Nicholls 
Government would have resolved into helpless 
fragments. Our McEnery experience of four 
years before would have been duplicated, and 
instead of a Government we should have had a 
Grievance. 

The docket was taken up by Chief Justice 
Manning at once, and causes were argued from 
day to day just as if the Court had been in ses- 
sion time out of mind. The whole Bar thronged 
its sessions. The lawyers made a point to attend, 
in order to do homage, as it were, to the new 
Court, "our own Court," as they affectionately 
styled it, and in order also to manifest their 
confidence in the stability of the new order. 

All sorts of rumors were industriously circu- 
lated. The Metropolitans were to attack the 
building in force. A Federal assault was im- 
pending. Select assassins were under contract 
to carve the Chief and Associate Justices, and 
kegs of gunpowder were to be placed in the 
lower room, in order to promote the Court to a 
still more elevated Bench. But Judges and 



lawyers went the even tenor of their way, and 
the only explosions as yet befallen have been 
the innocuous ones of rhetoric. 

Mr. B. F. Butler, the one who courted infamy 
with such success during the late war, asked a 
witness before a Congressional Committee on 
Louisiana affairs if it was not quick work for a 
Court to be appointed, hear causes, and decide 
them the same day ; implying that the present 
Supreme Court of Louisiana had so heard and 
decided. The question was characteristic, and 
the implication also, being wholly destitute of 
truth. The fact is, that the first opinions de- 
livered by the Court were on the 29th of January, 
three weeks after its installation. 

When that mystical Commission, evolved 
from the inner consciousness of President Hayes, 
composed of McVeigh, Harlan, and others, and 
despatched to still troubled waters with a thin 
coating of oil, arrived in New Orleans, they in- 
vited the Supreme Court to meet them. It 
appeared that the three Packard claimants had 
solicited and obtained an intervew, and through 
their Chief had presented a long argument to 
show that they were the legal Supreme Court. 
The Commission considered that fair play re- 
quired they should give the rival Court a chance 
to vindicate its claims. Hence the invitation. 

The new Judges made the visit, not in a 
body or officially, as the Packard claimants had 
done, but individually and informally, as other 
citizens of the place were doing, in discharge 
of an act of civility. After an interchange of 
introductory small talk, Judge Lawrence, of 
Illinois, Chairman of the Commission, turned 
to Chief Justice Manning and remarked that 
the Commission had heard from the Packard 
Court the grounds on which it claimed to be 
legally organized, and now that they would 
listen to any argument in support of the preten- 
sions of the Nicholls Court. 

Those who know the Chief Justice can better 
imagine than the writer can describe the look 
which fell on the Chairman of the Commission 
at this announcement. 

He informed the Chairman that neither he 
nor his Associates had come there to argue, or to 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



21 



defend, or even to discuss their status. They 
constituted the Supreme Court of Louisiana. 
They were the arbiters of others' causes. They 
had none to plead of their own. They daily 
heard, and for the past three months had been 
hearing arguments, and deciding causes which 
involved millions. Their decrees were executed. 
The whole Bar of the State placed before them 
their suits for final adjudication, and to that Bar 
they referred the Commission for any light they 
might desire on the question propounded. 
"Let it be known," said the Chief Justice, ris- 
ing, and putting the question aside with a defini- 
tive gesture, "that argument is wanted by the 
Commission, and from John A. Campbell, to 
the youngest junior at the Bar, the argument 
will be presently forthcoming." 

The contrast between the conduct and bearing 
of the real and the simulated Court, at this junc- 
ture, must have impressed the members of the 
Commission ; and when the superb manner in 
which our Court had borne itself before the 
Commission became generally known, its popu- 
larity rose to fever heat. 

Thus closed the judicial phase of the drama of 
Louisiana's redemption. 

Judge Manning has presided over the Supreme 
Court of Louisiana nearly three years, and we are 
now, therefore, able to make something like a 
just appraisement of him as a Chief and as a 
Judge, and also to discern certain personal 
traits, which tend to illustrate character. 

The schooling in active affairs which he re- 
ceived as aide of Governor Moore, and after- 
wards as Adjutant-General of the State, was not 
an irrelevant training for the duties which de- 
volved on him as Chief of a new Court. Those 
duties embraced no small field for organization 
and the conduct of practical matters, and it is 
not too much to say that he brought to their per- 
formance talents for administration of an uncom- 
mon order. A clock-like precision, regularity 
and method, united with breadth of view and a 
clear, felicitous adaptation of means to ends, are 
evinced by the whole body of rules adopted by 
him for the governance and the practical working 
of his Court. 



The formal mode of opening the Court pre- 
scribed at the outset by the Chief Justice, and 
still adhered to, was a startling innovation, and, 
in its way, characteristic. The immemorial 
fashion had been for the Judges to straggle in 
about the hour for opening Court, each suiting 
his convenience as to the moment of taking his 
seat ; and after all the Judges were in place, the 
Crier opened the Court. Meanwhile, the mem- 
bers of the Bar sat in front, with hats on or off, 
chatting and laughing familiarly. Under the 
prevailing mode all this is changed. At the ap- 
pointed hour the Chief Justice forms his Court 
in the consultation-room, and they proceed in a 
body to the Bench. Their approach is heralded 
by the Crier, and as they cross the threshold of 
the Court-room, the Bar rise, and remain stand- 
ing until the Judges ascend the Bench and bow 
to them. The lawyers return the courtesy, and 
resume their seats, and then the regular business 
of the day begins. 

At first, the sentiment of the Bar on the sub- 
ject of the innovation was conflicting. Some 
approved, and others disapproved, and although 
the matter was a small one, it evoked discussion 
enough to show that the Bar of New Orleans, 
like the world at large, is divided as to the pro- 
priety of forms and ceremonies. Some men ad- 
vocate a rejection of all forms, and insist that 
nothing deserves to stand which is not capable 
of standing in its naked simplicity. However 
true this may be in the abstract, as a practical 
proposition it is unworthy of consideration. 
Whatever is necessary to the existence or to the 
well-being of society, deserves to be surrounded 
by whatever increases respect for it. We know 
a priori, as well as historically, that the emotions 
are largely controlled by' the imagination, and 
that the imagination, even among the highly 
cultured, is powerfully affected by symbols and 
externals. A decorous ceremonial, therefore, 
like the one in question, which expresses by its 
formulary a sentiment of deference and respect 
for the Judiciary of the State, is appropriate and 
desirable. And this is now, I believe, the 
general opinion of the Louisiana Bar. 

In his appearance and bearing on the Bench, 



22 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Judge Manning is the beau ideal of a Chief Jus- 
tice. Much above the average height, of hercu- 
lean frame, with just enougli flesh to make with- 
out marring contours, erect as a statue, and 
surmounted by a head massive as Webster's, and 
a face steeped in meditation, he is the incar- 
nation of decorum and dignity. 

His deportment towards counsel, who appear 
in oral argument before him, deserves the high- 
est commendation. Aware that the method of 
presenting his case, special to each lawyer, how- 
ever vicious an.l defective it may be when mea- 
sured by correct standards, is yet the one best 
adapted to that lawyer's interpretation of the 
matter at bar, he abstains from obtruding any 
suggestion looking to the substitution of another 
and better method. Bearing habitually in mind 
also the fact which many Judges ignore or for- 
get, that in the case of many, if not most 
speakers, to break the continuity of an argu- 
ment is to emasculate it, he rarely interrupts. 
It is only for weighty cause that he propounds 
a question to a lawyer while speaking, and never 
permits himself to be provoked into a discussion. 
To the nameless juniors, and to the conceded 
leaders of the Bar, to the eloquent, and to the 
stupid, the learned and the ignorant, he accords 
the same grave, attentive, and patient hearing. 
The tax which this must assess upon one with 
his lively sensibilities is difficult to compute. To 
watch his dumb martyrdom under the unrelent- 
ing exposition of a legal truism, by some literal 
logician who will persist in demonstrating that 
twice two make four, is an instructive study in 
the power of human endurance. 

In point of rhetorical skill, the subject of this 
memoir has had no peer among his predecessors 
on the Bench. His opinions abound with liter- 
ary gems of a rare order. They may be culled 
at random from nearly any one of his important 
decisions. As an instance of his power of dra- 
matic narrative, I quote the following statement 
of facts introductory to an able interpretation of 
one of the difficult branches of the succession 
law of Louisiana. The statement is taken from 
the case of Harrington vs. Barfield, reported in 
30 Louisiana Annual, p. 1297. 



" Levi and Margaret Barfield — husband and 
wife — were living, in 1850, in Franklin parish, 
upon a plantation of their own, surrounded by 
the appliances of comfort, and even of luxury, 
that befitted persons who by patient toil and 
prudent management had obtained the means to 
procure them. Three children had survived 
of the larger number that was born to them — 
Celia, Isabel, and Ira. In that year a young man 
named Harrington came into the neighborhood, 
and sought to obtain the patronage of parents in 
the establishment of a school. He found en- 
couragement, and the unwary father of Celia 
permitted him to open a school at his house or 
on his premises. Harrington had a fair exterior, 
and plausible address, and possessed an accom- 
plishment which, in the rough life of a sparsely 
settled and imperfectly cleared country such as 
that locality then was, gave him the entree to 
society, made him the visitor more desired than 
all others, to the country dances and social 
gatherings of the neighborhood. He was a 
musician, and his instrument was the violin. 

" Celia Barfield was then in the first bloom of 
mature womanhood. Whether anything had 
transpired to awaken her father's suspicions, we 
have now no means of positively knowing, but 
Harrington left Mr. Barfield's, and went to an- 
other place, not far distant, and opened another 
school. There is little doubt that the father had 
discovered his mistake in permitting this attrac- 
tive adventurer to live under his roof, and sought 
to repair the probable injury by sending him 
away. Not man)' months elapsed before he had 
to bemoan the effects of his fatal error. 

"In April, 1851, there was afestive gathering 
in the neighborhood. Celia Barfield left the 
house of her parents, bedecked for the evening's 
sport. They never saw her again. Harrington 
met her at the dance, and the two thence rode 
away, and were married by a Justice of the 
Peace. They were attended by those to whom 
their secret intentions had been made known, 
and among them was an uncle by marriage of 
the infatuated girl, who has lived to tell on this 
trial the story of his niece's dishonor, and his 
own shame. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2 3 



"About two months after the marriage, Har- 
rington was charged with shooting at a man for 
some cause, and was arrested and examined 
before a magistrate, and discharged. This cir- 
cumstance occasioned the usual flood of eager 
small-talk in a country neighborhood, and among 
it was the whisper, appalling to the Barfields and 
their daughter, that Harrington had a living 
wife in Mississippi then. This was spoken of as 
a rumor, but there was no one then who under- 
took to assert it. Harrington determined to 
move away. He left in July, giving as a reason 
his fear that the man who had him arrested for 
the alleged shooting would have him indicted. 
Celia had worn the name of wife two and a half 
months, and was already sufficiently advanced in 
pregnancy to attract notice. This rumor of 
Harrington's previous marriage, and of his 
living wife, reached her ears. She asked him 
about its truth. He denied that his first wife 
was living. He had represented himself as a 
widower on his first appearance there. He as- 
severated that his first wife was dead, and she 
believed him. It is strange, she said, that 
every one knew that Mr. Harrington had another 
living wife, now that she was married to him, 
and had not found it out before. She declared 
her disbelief in the story, and went with him 
to his new home. That was Magnolia, in 
Arkansas. 

"In 1875 another stranger appeared in this 
same locality, bearing the same family name, 
with the baptismal prefixes of that uncle's name, 
who had assisted in the elopement of twenty-four 
years before. He said he was the eldest and 
only surviving child of the school-teacher and 
Celia Barfield — the same that she bore in her 
womb when she left the place to which he had 
now come for the first time. Many changes 
had taken place. Levi Barfield had been dead 
many years. Margaret, his widow, had hus- 
banded the property with unusual success — had 
increased it, so that the plantation of twelve 
hundred acres, and the movable property and 
slaves, had become valuable. She survived the 
war, and though the estate of course suffered 
great deterioration, when she died on the last 



day of 1870, there was enough to satisfy moderate 
wants. 

"Ira Barfield, her only son, and Isabel, her 
daughter, now the wife of John M. Gwinn, took 
possession of the property, formally accepted 
the succession unconditionally in January, 1871, 
and in the following December partitioned it 
between themselves. Each was in the enjoy- 
ment of the one-half of the property of their 
father and mother when this stranger, claiming 
to be the son of their sister, appeared on the 
scene. He had been in this State two or three 
years, but did not know in what particular part 
of it his mother's family lived. His father had 
found a third wife in Arkansas after Celia Bar- 
field's death, and this last wife was a widow with 
a daughter by a previous marriage, who had 
grown up, married, and come down to the 
neighborhood, and it was from her that he had 
found out where the Barfields lived. His 
mother's death had occurred a few years after 
the removal to Arkansas. His father had told 
him his mother's name, and that he would be 
entitled to some property in Louisiana at some 
future day, but he knew nothing more. He 
was very young, hardly old enough to be told or 
to remember anything but such salient facts as 
his mother's name and birthplace. The father 
himself had died before he imparted his singu- 
lar story to the son. The war had broken out, 
and William Harrington in some measure atoned 
for his violation of the laws of his country by 
flying to her defence. He perished, a victim to 
the fevers of the camp at Corinth. 

" Young Harrington told his story to Ira Bar- 
field, who listened with half-yielding credulity, 
but warned him that better proof was needed 
than his narrative, however probable, before he 
could be recognized as Celia's son, or, as such, 
be entitled to Celia's inheritance. Isabel scouted 
his whole story. He was an impostor, not the 
son of her sister — but, even if he were, he. was 
conceived in shame, born -in disgrace, and was 
now flouting the pretensions of an adulterous 
bastard to share the Barfield property in the 
faces of those whom his mother, had dishon- 
ored. The reception which this brother and 



2 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



sister gave to the son of the dead woman is 
characteristic." 

The foundation of his mind is robust common 
sense, and overlying this are a vigorous but not 
dominant imagination, a lively fancy, and a 
subtle vein of ironical humor which ramifies 
the whole body of his thought. These faculties, 
in possession of a rich and copious vocabulary, 
and disciplined by long literary culture, have 
resulted in a style singularly manly,- picturesque, 
and incisive. 

It may be doubted, however, whether it is 
politic in one who courts a reputation for solid- 
ity and depth, to admit grace of expression, 
aptness of image, and perspicuity of thought as 
elements of his style. In the popular estimation 
depth is indissolubly associated with obscurity, 
solidity and strength with dulness and labor. 
When people therefore encounter a writer, or 
speaker, who clarifies instead of muddies, who 
entertains instead of bores, who makes the pro- 
found and the intricate pleasurable of comprev 
hension, who sheds such a flood of light on the 
matter in hand as to make its depths clear, and 
its crookedness straight, they infer absence of 
depth in him who does it. They ascribe their 
ability to see to the bottom of his thought to 
its shallowness, rather than to the transparent 
medium through which he enables them to 
look. 

And so, also, in popular estimation, what is 
easily done requires but little strength to do, 
when in point of fact strength, ancl only strength, 
works with ease. It is weakness that strains, and 
labors, and masters its task in obvious pain. 
And thus it happens that to some minds, the 
power of Judge Manning maybe discredited by 
the very qualities which illustrate and embellish 
it. 

Among his personal characteristics are some 
which serve to give him a marked identity. 
Conservatism deeply imbues his whole nature. 
It declares itself in the loyal tenacity with which 
he clings to English modes of thought, criteria 
of conduct, and prejudices, inherited by him 
through a long line of English ancestors. It is 
conspicuously displayed by the heroic obstinacy 



with which he resists the innovations in ortho- 
graphy, instigated by Webster. He upholds 
with unfaltering zeal the standards of Johnson 
and Walker, and woe to the compositor who 
lays vandal fingers on his copy, and converts 
his "shew" into show, or his "favour" into 
favor. 

His love of the exact, the orderly, and the 
systematic, essential as it is to the administrator, 
and the worker, has acquired such dominion, 
that it threatens, later in life, to transport him 
into an implacable formalism. Ragged disci- 
pline, or disorder in any form, are offences to 
him, which ought to be condignly dealt with. 
A mislaid book, a smeared manuscript, or an 
ill-hung picture, give him a sense of positive 
discomfort. A misplaced comma jars on him 
like a discord in music, a mispelled word gives 
him an indigestion, and the substitution by the 
printer of a wrong word for the right one used 
by himself, afflicts him with insomnia. A breach 
of morals he might, under certain circumstances, 
be brought to excuse, but it is quite impossible 
he could ever be persuaded to condone a sole- 
cism in breeding. 

At its collegiate commencement in the year 
1878, the University of North Carolina conferred 
on Chief Justice Manning the honorary degree 
of LL.D. Only those admitted to his confi- 
dence know, what deep and abiding gratification 
that testimonial gave him. Not because of the 
titular distinction it brought, but because it was 
a recognition of desert by that venerable Insti- 
tution, toward which his affections still turn with 
the ardor of early love. I believe it is hardly 
too much to say, that the suffrage of that old 
Collegiate Senate gave him more true joy, than 
the vote of the Legislative Senate that confirmed 
him as Chief Justice of Louisiana. 

For purposes of love, or hate, idiosyncrasy in 
character is not undesirable. It individualizes 
the object of sentiment, and thus renders it sus- 
ceptible of being more definitely grasped. And 
therefore it is that the very peculiarities of Judge 
Manning, which afford congenial texts for hostile 
tongues, tend to root him all the more firmly in 
the hearts of those who love him. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



25 



I have reserved for a final consideration those 
characteristics most important to a rightful esti- 
mate of him in his present position, his charac- 
teristics as a Judge. 

One of the first things to arrest the attention 
when scrutinizing him as a Judge, is his immense 
capacity for work. He does, not only with ap- 
parent but real ease, an amount of labor that 
would fatally overtax one who lacks his remark- 
able facility. Judah P. Benjamin is probably 
the only man known to the Louisiana Bar, cap- 
able of doing the same amount of work with a 
similar absence of struggle, and a similar freedom 
from retributive consequences. In Judge Man- 
ning's case this exceptional capacity arises partly 
from a tireless and systematic industry, partly 
from a talent for mastering details, and partly 
from an agility of mind, and a quickness of 
apprehension, which enable him to separate the 
important from the unimportant, and thus seize 
promptly on the salient and determinative. 

His Common Law training was of seasonable 
service when called on to interpret the composite 
system of civil and common law which obtains 
in Louisiana, and many passages might be cited 
from his opinions, showing that his early ac- 
quisitions still constitute a part of his legal 
possessions. 

His expositions of law are noted for force, 
clearness, and elevation, and they carry with 
them an impression of colorless impartiality. 
His mind is too healthy, and full of virile 
strength, to be dwarfed by the long, technical 
curriculum of his profession. While his deci- 
sions therefore are marked by an intelligent, 
they do not evince a slavish, or irrational ad- 
herence to the letter of the law. Whenever a 
literal construction blasphemes the spirit of a 
law, he rejects and ■ condemns it with the em- 
phasis a Puritan father would have condemned 
a violation of the Sabbath. If the circumstances 
of a particular case are so exceptional that none 
of the adjudged cases cited by counsel furnish 
an appropriate precedent, he creates a precedent, 
and with the same confident alacrity with which 
he would conform to an immemorial one. 

Next in importance to adjudicating legal 



questions according to law, is to rest the ad- 
judications, as far as may be, on high and 
equitable principles. The functions of a Judge 
are not merely judicial, but in large measure 
ethical also, and his decisions only rise to their 
possible heights, when supported by moral, as 
well as legal sanctions. A Supreme Court 
therefore is, par excellence, not merely the 
Arbiter of disputes, but likewise the Conser- 
vator of public and private morals. No chief, 
I believe, ever had a clearer apprehension of 
the offices of his Court, than the subject of this 
memoir, and no other Judge has ever more 
diligently inculcated in his official utterances a 
higher and healthier code of conduct. Never 
forcing the occasion, merely to air his senti- 
ments in a moral dress parade, yet no case has 
ever come up for his determination, involving 
a breach of honesty, or a flaw in honor, which 
has not evoked his hearty and damnatory 
animadversions. 

From among many illustrations of the fore- 
going with which his opinions abound, I quote 
the following typical extract from the decision 
in the case of Gaidry vs. Lyons, 29 Annual 
Reports, p. 8. 

' The record reeks with fraud and perjury. 
Two brothers combine to evade the payment of 
a debt acknowledged or proved to be justly due. 
If the testimony of the one be true, that of the 
other is necessarily false. The forms of law are 
carefully observed, behind which they attempt 
to hide their guilty purpose. Solemn declara- 
tions in authentic acts, and judicial admissions 
upon the records of courts throw a veil over the 
secret intention imbedded beneath this crust of 
formularies. The law rends this veil asunder 
with its rude and unsparing hand, and benefi- 
cently throws over society its protecting shield. 
Simulation is difficult to be proved. They who 
practise it conceal their devices under the guise 
of acts which bear the stamp of authenticity, 
and have the outward appearance of fair dealing. 
The sinuous paths they tread require to be 
illumined by the light of truth, poured upon 
them with merciless brilliancy. The law wisely 
permits great latitude in the application of the 



26 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



process by which this truth is to be eliminated. 
Conscience can be probed. The worst deformity 
thus exposed will revolt an individual observer, 
but society reaps the benefit of the detection in 
wrong-doing, and the law vindicates its mission." 
Read also in the case of Hawkins vs. " The 
New Orleans Picayune," 29 Annual, p. 140, the 
following commentary on the District Judge, 
who declined to disturb a verdict founded on 
the bribery of a juror. 

"The refusal of the Judge to grant a new 
trial under these circumstances is not merely error 
in law. It is official misconduct, and repre- 
hensible in all its phases. It was his duty to 
have ordered a new trial ex mei-o motu. A judge 
is the conservator of his court. The conserva- 
tion of its purity is his first and highest function. 
It should not require the interposition of counsel 
or of any subordinate officer of court to move 
the judge promptly to repair an injury to his 
own administration of justice, effected by such 
foul means. The knowledge of the stain, on 
that day and by that act stamped upon his court, 
was brought home to him by protracted and re- 
peated appeals for its removal. His own knowl- 
edge of the facts was attempted to be elicited, 
and instead of making that knowledge the basis 
of an instant and voluntary order which should 
wrest from the briber the fruits of his wrongful 
act, he permitted the verdict, which he knew to 
have been bought, to tarnish the records of his 
court until the appeal to a higher tribunal now 
removes the opprobrium thus cast upon the law, 
and upon those who administer it." 

Recognizing the fact that a compliance in 
good faith with all personal obligations is es- 
sential, not only to justice, but also to the main- 
tenance of a wholesome public opinion, he has 
never failed, when opportunity permitted, to 
enforce the conventions of parties in all of 
their reasonably implied as well as their ex- 
pressed stipulations. 

Thus in the case of Hardin vs. Wolf, 29 
Annual, p. 344, where a debtor invoked the 
protection of exemption laws, he said : 

"There is much to be said also in favor of 
that public policy which is a conspicuous feature 



of the laws of all countries, and which is the 
basis of public morals, viz. : that compulsory 
fidelity in the discharge of money obligations 
elevates the character of the citizen, and by 
consequence promotes public virtue. The State 
that visits by the penalty of its laws, the violation 
or disregard of pecuniary engagements with the 
greatest rigor, is the State that has the highest 
standard of public honor. Wherever the law 
offers a premium to dishonesty by providing 
means of escape to the citizen from the payment 
of his debts — whether the mode be by exemption 
of property from seizure, or by the equally con- 
venient one of hiding it under cover of another's 
claim — there will be found the greatest laxity of 
the public conscience, and the most shameless 
disregard of public and private obligations. 

"When, therefore, there is not an express 
statute, conferring upon the party seeking to 
evade an obligation, the unquestioned legal right 
to escape the consequences of that obligation, 
and he seeks to justify it upon the ground of 
public policy as the motif of the construction 
he invokes, it may not be inaptly answered that 
the same considerations forbid the multiplication 
of those devices by which he who promises is 
excused from performing, and he who renounces 
a benefit is permitted to enjoy it in spite of his 
renunciation." 

And again in the case of White vs. Barrett, 
30 Annual, p. 1282. 

" We are warmly urged to carry out in a 
liberal spirit the ' enlightened policy ' of modern 
legislation, which seeks to protect the citizen 
from pauperism. An enlightened policy, which 
teaches the citizen the weight of an obligation 
by enforcing its performance, cannot look with- 
out dismay at the spectacle of any debtor keep- 
ing secure in his grasp property, not legitimately 
or necessarily included within the terms of the 
law which accords it to him. The abrasion of 
the moral sense of the general public, occasioned 
by frequently witnessing this successful defiance 
of just creditors, is a greater harm than the 
private suffering of an isolated individual here 
and there, and enlightened statesmanship looks 
only to the general good." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



27 



In the case entitled the Succession of Womack, 
29 Annual, p. 5S0, the creditors of the succes- 
sion sought to have a payment in Confederate 
money, which the execu'.or had accepted in good 
faith, declared null, and the executor held liable 
in greenbacks. In deciding that case, the Chief- 
Justice, as the organ of the Court, said : 

" The bill of exceptions states the ground of 
objection to be that the executor cannot be per- 
mitted to prove the existence or use of any 
money in discharge of debts at that time, except 
United States currency, nor that Confederate 
States currency was the currency of the country 
at that time, as it was issued in violation of the 
laws of the United States. 

" These and similar objections are based upon 
the idea that courts must shut their eyes to and 
ignore events that have stirred the world to its 
remotest recesses — that while all humanity has 
attested its interest in the historical occurrences 
that, were then transpiring, judicial blindness 
must be affected or assumed, as to those occur- 
rences, by those who are called on to determine 
the legal consequences of the acts of individuals 
in the midst of those events. 

" It was properly proved in this case, and was 
admitted by both counsel, that Confederate 
money was the sole currency of that part of 
the country when these proceedings were had 
at that time, and that this currency was then 
worth one-third its face in gold. 

" The highest judicial tribunal has sanctioned 
the doctrine of common sense and common 
honesty, which requires that obligations made 
under the exceptional regime of the Confederate 
States, should be enforced with due regard to 
the surroundings of the contracting parties, and 
in accordance with their manifest intent ; and 
in assessing their moneyed value, that the value 
of Confederate currency at the time of the 
transaction should be the standard that regu- 
lates the judgment of the court. Thorington 
vs. Smith, 8 Wall. 1 ; Delmas vs. Merch. Ins. 
Co.,— Wall." 

Again, in the case of Lay vs. Sue. O'Neill, 29 
Annual, 726. "Great reliance is placed by the 
counsel for the tutor's succession on the effect of 



Article 149, of the Constitution of 1868. They 
contend that under it, the judgments of homolo- 
gation rendered between January, i86i,and 1868, 
are valid and final, and they argue on the basis, 
or theory, that judgments rendered during the 
late war between the States, in a locality that 
was under the sway, and subject to the jurisdic- 
tion of the Confederate States, would not have 
been valid without an act of grace; such as that 
Article of the present Constitution. 

" This is not the theory that pervades the judi- 
cial history of the world. Every country that 
has suffered the calamity of intestine strife, and 
that has witnessed one portion of its subjects or 
citizens armed in hostile array to another, has 
acted upon the theory, that a government was 
entitled to obedience if it had the power to en- 
force it, and judicial tribunals have uniformly 
acted upon and applied this principle. As 
merely an abstract proposition, it is so wise, 
and its application practically to human affairs 
has been found so salutary, that it is not to be 
supposed the framers of the Constitution of 1868 
were unmindful of its existence, or that they in- 
tended Article 149 to be more than a recogni- 
tion of a rule that the experience of mankind, 
illumined by the gleam of centuries, has found 
necessary for its peace. 

" In the fifteenth century, and within so small 
a territorial area as England, two hostile gov- 
ernments disputed with varying success for 
supremacy, and acquired, or lost, the possession 
of tracts of country with frequent alternations. 
During these wars of the Roses, each govern- 
ment enforced the obedience of the inhabitants 
under its territorial sway, and they who rendered 
such obedience, whether it was enforced or vol- 
untary, were not held to suffer for it. Black- 
stone thus exhibits the practical necessity for 
this doctrine and its early recognition : 'When, 
therefore, an usurper is in possession, the subject 
is excused and justified in obeying and giving 
him assistance; otherwise, under an usurpation, 
no man could be safe : if the lawful prince had 
a right to hang him for obedience to the powers 
in being, as the usurper would certainly do for 
disobedience. Comm. Book 4, Marg. 78.' " 



28 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



The crowning act in his judicial career is the 
opinion prepared and read by him as the organ 
of the court, in the celebrated case of the State 
vs. Thomas C. Anderson et al., reported in the 
29th Annual. 

The opinion deserves to be considered, not 
merely because it embraces a deep and masterly 
interpretation of great questions of law, which 
concern liberty and life, but also because its 
enunciation, at the time, and under the circum- 
stances of its delivery, required a moral heroism 
which a court has rarely been called on to dis- 
play. 

For years Louisiana had been the victim of a 
brutal, remorseless, and rapacious despotism. 
By the Federal enactments, known as the Re- 
construction Laws, her autonomy, while theo- 
retically preserved, was practically destroyed. 
Under the operation of those laws the intelli- 
gence and moral worth of the State were de- 
posed, and in their stead its ignorance and 
depravity installed. The outgrowth of this was 
a unique crop of political knaves, compounded 
of the vampire and the cut-throat, who plun- 
dered, and sucked, and eviscerated, until the 
substance of the State was so wasted that her very 
identity was disguised. More than once the 
people, by a fair ballot, had overthrown this 
despotism, and each time, either by force or 
fraud, it had been reimposed. Fraudulent forms 
of law had been devised to assure its perpetuity, 
and when these became insufficient, the Federal 
bayonet was Employed with insolent frankness. 
At last the people, disciplined, and compactly 
consolidated by long suffering, put forth a su- 
preme effort, and in 1876, spoke with the tongue 
of so large a majority, that pious souls believed 
that even our cut-throats would heed its utter- 
ance. This injustice to our cut-throats they 
promptly rebuked. In the Act creating the 
"Returning Board," they had contrived apolit- 
ical machinery capable of paralyzing the tongue 
of any majority. But at this particular juncture 
the common-place mechanics formerly employed 
to work the machinery were wholly incompe- 
tent. For, observe, that at this time a national 
election coincided with the State election, and 



the choice of a President turned on the vote of 
Louisiana. This concentrated the gaze of eighty 
millions of eyes on the Returning Board of that 
State. Whoever handled the machine of fraud 
then, must perform his functions in full view 
of the civilized world, and under the glare of 
an electrical illumination. The necessary work, 
done under such conditions, brooked no pren- 
tice hands. It required agents gifted with no 
ordinary gifts, and deficient in no ordinary de- 
ficiencies. They must be men impervious to 
reproach, deaf to the cries of outraged public 
opinion, superior to reason, and not afraid of 
unharnessed hell. Our cut-throats found the 
men in Thomas C. Anderson, and J. Madison 
Wells. Compared with these men, their pre- 
decessors in political burglary, were bucolic 
sucklings, fit only for a pastoral poem. They 
had contented themselves, with a modest and 
child-like villany, with suppressing a single State, 
but the genius of Anderson and Wells bore 
them to a level with their great occasion, and 
they not only smothered the voice of Louisiana, 
but throttled the verdict of the Nation. The 
country was stirred from centre to circumference 
with a thrill of indignant horror. In Louisiana 
the feeling against the wrongdoers was bitter 
and dangerous. It smouldered while the polit- 
ical affairs of the Stale remained confused, but 
as soon as they were composed, it broke out 
into a fierce and unremitting demand for their 
punishment. At last an indictment against 
them was found, under the laws of the State, 
and they were brought to the bar of criminal 
justice. At the head of the prosecution was 
Horatio N. Ogden, Attorney-General of the 
State, a first cousin of General Fred. N. Ogden, 
and one of the most brilliant members of that 
gifted and historic family. The Attorney-Gen- 
eral pressed the case with a fervid zeal, energy, 
and eloquence, that overcame all obstacles. 
The people of Louisiana watched the progress 
of the trial with intense interest, and when it 
resulted in a verdict of condemnation, a deep 
and general acclaim bore witness to the satisfac- 
tion it gave. 
Anderson claimed that the verdict was illegal, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



29 



and upon pure questions of law, appealed to the 
Supreme Court. 

The ordeal through which that Court then 
passed, tested to the last degree the stuff of 
which it was composed. All the emotional in- 
fluences which sway the judgments, and con- 
trol the actions of men, the influences which 
stimulate, and the influences which deter, were 
brought to biar on it. The righteous ven- 
geance of a people, long delayed, and instigated 
until its measure overflowed, thundered for 
gratification. The object of its wrath was 
already in its grasp, under the sanction of an 
impartial verdict, and it demanded that the 
Supreme Court should not avert the just conse- 
quences of that verdict. This demand pressed 
for recognition from many sources, and in all 
forms. It employed, by turns, the arguments 
of persuasion, and the arguments of intimida- 
tion. It dealt largely in rewards and punish- 
ments, and held up, in shadowy background, 
the possible forfeiture of social state. 

On the other hand, came oracular utterances 
from Federal officials at Washington, denounc- 
ing the prosecution as a legal outrage. 

Supplementing all this was a profound sym- 
pathy with the popular sentiment, on the part 
of every member of the court. Each of them 
knew that a great crime had been perpetrated, 
and each was morally certain that the perpetra- 
tor was before them. They had but to affirm 
what had already been solemnly found by a jury 
of the defendant's peers, and they would have 
reaped a deep, personal gratification, and made 
themselves the idols of the popular heart. How 
they bore themselves in this crucial emergency, 
is best shown by the opinion of the court, which 
was pronounced by Chief Justice Manning, and 
from which I take the following extracts: 

" It is not needful to say more for the decision 
of this cause, nor were we inclined to advert to 
any of its features, other than those directly 
presented by the record, but we are driven from 
this reticent attitude by having spread before us 
in the printed argument of some of the defend- 
ant's counsel an open letter, dated 'Washington; 
February 4, 1878,' addressed to the prisoner, 



and signed by John Sherman, Stanley Matthews 
and others, in which the public, and the people, 
from which the jurors are to be drawn for his 
trial, is informed that he is falsely accused and 
maliciously persecuted. 

"A few years ago — it was within the present 
decade — a member of the British Parliament 
undertook to influence the course of a public 
prosecution, then pending in an English court, 
against a fraudulent claimant of the honors and 
estates of an ancient house. The criminal trial 
there, as here, had been preceded by a civil pro- 
ceeding, and both were of unexampled duration, 
so that the question, who was the rightful heir 
of the Tichborne family, had extended beyond 
the legal circle, and had invaded social and 
political life. 

"When the unwarrantable publication had 
been made by the member of Parliament under 
his own signature, in which he had endeavored 
to bring opprobrium upon the court and its 
officers by charging that the claimant was falsely 
accused and maliciously prosecuted, the Lord 
Chief Justice Cockburn promptly repressed his 
impertinent, though not interested, zeal by in- 
flicting upon him a fine of ^250, and sentenced 
him, in default of payment, to imprisonment in 
the county jail. 

" He went to jail, and there remained until 
a relative released him by paying his fine. On 
the reassembling of Parliament at its next ses- 
sion, the Judge formally communicated his 
action to the House of Commons, that it might 
be officially known he had not wantonly in- 
vaded its privileges, and that body, ever watch- 
ful over the inviolability of those privileges, 
silently approved the Judge's vindication of the 
sanctity of his court. 

"Public opinion, in this instance and in this 
country, can alone exercise that punitive power, 
the employment of which is equally well merited 
on both occasions. ' ' 

"We have been thus careful to rest our 
decision upon only those principles of law, of 
the soundness of which there can be no serious 
question by candid, disinterested and enlight- 



3° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ened jurists everywhere. There remain now for 
notice the concluding senteno... jf the Attorney- 
General's appeal to us to reverse our ruling. 

"Like him, we are conscious of having been 
just to the accused, and just to the State. With 
him, we feel the necessity that our decision shall 
contain no assertion of principle which cannot 
be successfully defended, and we believe we 
have now placed that decision upon a basis so 
unassailable that the rightfulness of our judg- 
ment shall commend it to the candid jurist in 
every land. If this court had yielded to the 
impassioned and justifiable zeal of the prosecut- 
ing officer, or had been swayed by the feeling, 
natural and spontaneous among all good men, 
of detestation of a great crime against free 
government and the rights of the people, and 
by reason thereof, had permitted its judgment 
to be clouded by passion, or warped by love of 
applause, or to be influenced by any considera- 
tion, other than its duty with sedulous care to 
ascertain the law, and with firm purpose to apply 
it, it would be unworthy of the high place 
it holds in the government of the State. It 
would argue a deplorable state of public morals, 
if it could be confidently assumed beforehand 
in a case such as this, what the decision of a 
court would be from the known political affilia- 
tions or antipathies of its members. It would 
be a public calamity, the extent of which could 
not be measured, if a court should prevent the 
escape of an accused person by torturing the 
well-settled principles of law, applied through 
long years to criminal prosecutions with unvary- 
ing uniformity, and bend them to the accom- 
plishment of partisan desires. 

"Rather let it be known of all men that a 
court can consider neither expediency nor policy 
— that it cannot shape its judgment either to 
realize the hopes of friends or to quiet the fears 
of foes — and that Judges may abhor a male- 
factor, and yet refuse to condemn him contrary 
to the law." 

I had intended to make some comments on 
the opinion, but it has been done by one so 
much wiser and abler, that 1 forego the in- 
tention. 



A few weeks ago I paid a short visit to some 
friends who reside at the University of Virginia. 
During the visit I had the honor of forming the 
acquaintance of Professor Minor, who for thirty 
years has occupied the chair of Statute and 
Common Law, in the Law Department of the 
University. In addition to being a law author 
of standard authority, and among the most 
distinguished of our living jurists, which I already 
knew, I found him to be one of the weightiest 
and most charming talkers I have encountered. 

In course of conversation, one evening, he 
expressed a wish to read the opinion in the 
Anderson case. I gave him a copy of the 
opinion which he returned to me the following 
day with this eloquent and appreciative letter : 

Dear Sir : — Pray accept my thanks for having 
afforded me the satisfaction of reading C. J. 
Manning's vigorous opinion in Anderson's case, 
an opinion which reflects no less credit on his 
judicial acumen, than the circumstances under 
which it was delivered do upon the stubborn 
honor, which can no more be tamed by the 
fierce cry of the multitude, than by the tyrant's 
threat. The judge who shows himself thus wor- 
thy of Horace's lofty ascription to thejustum 
ac tenacem propositi virum, ought to be highly 
appreciated by his countrymen, especially at a 
time when modest and courageous virtue is so 
little the characteristic of public functionaries. 

The situation reminds one strongly of the oc- 
casion of Lord Mansfield's judgment reversing 
Wilkes' outlawry. 

And how grateful to us is the contrast between 
the great jurist of England, mouthing in fine 
rhetoric about his superiority to popular clamor, 
and then proceeding to pronounce a sentence in 
direct accord with it (albeit a righteous sen- 
tence), and our unpretentious American judge, 
breasting, with his fellows, the passionate, impe- 
rious, and not unjust demands of the whole 
country, and calmly giving utterance to the 
voice of law, " The State's collected will," with- 
out a word vaunting the courage it required, < r 
a syllable to show to the ages to come how 
truly heroic was the sense of right which, whilst 
it discharged from punishment a notorious and 
odious criminal, gave a noble and enduring tri- 
umph to legal justice ! 

I am, with much respect, 

Your friend and servant, 

John B. Minor. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3i 




. If ever a commemorative marble shall lift its 
shaft above the remains of Thomas Courtland 
Manning, no more fit and noble words could be 
inscribed on it than these: "Rather let it be 
known of all men, that a court can consider 
neither expediency nor policy; that it cannot 
shape its judgment, either to realize the hopes 
of friends, or to quiet the fears of foes; and 
that judges may abhor a malefactor, and yet re- 
fuse to condemn him contrary to the law." 
[Percy Roberts.] 



JUDGE OULD. 

Virginia. 

ROBERT OULD was born January 31st, 
Ifv) 1820, in Georgetown, D. C. ' His ac- 
ademical studies he pursued at Jefferson 
College, Pennsylvania, and the Colum- 
bian College, Washington, D. C, grad- 
uating from the latter in the fall of 1837. He 
began the study of law with Joseph H. Bradley, 
of Washington, and continued it under Judge 
Beverly Tucker, at William and Mary College, 
from the Law Department of which he gradu- 
ated in 1842. Early in the following year he 
was admitted to the "bar of the District of Colum- 
bia, at which he practised uninterruptedly until 
the outbreak of the civil war. He was appointed 
by President Pierce one of two members of the 
bar of the District of Columbia, to codify the 
laws of the District. Subsequently, on the 
death of Philip Barton Key, he was appointed 
United States District Attorney of the District 
of Columbia, in which office one of his first du- 
ties was to prosecute Daniel E. Sickles, for the 
killing of his predecessor, Mr. Key. The man- 
ner in which he discharged that duty is still re- 
membered by the public. He encountered in 
the trial, among other counsel, Messrs. Brady 
and Graham, of New York, two of the most 
eloquent and effective criminal lawyers of their 
day, and Edwin M. Stanton, afterwards Secre- 
tary of War, and a man of prodigious ability in 
his profession, as well as of blustering rudeness 
both in and out of it ; yet, in the face of this 



array of forensic talent, he sustained himself 
and his case, by common consent, with a 
learning, skill, and power worthy of the excit- 
ing occasion. He held the office of District 
Attorney until after the inauguration of Mr. 
Lincoln. In the ensuing spring he went with 
his family to Virginia, of which his wife was a 
native, and where, in the course of the year, he 
was appointed Assistant Secretary of War to 
Secretary Benjamin, holding the appointment 
until Mr. Benjamin was transferred to the State 
Department. Under the Cartel of Exchange, 
drawn up and signed by General John A. Dix 
and General D. H. Hill, on behalf of the re- 
spective belligerents, July 22d, 1862, he was 
appointed Confederate Agent of Exchange, and 
held that position thenceforward until the close 
of the war. At the surrender of the Confederate 
forces on the occupation of Richmond, he 
offered his parole to General Grant, who gener- 
ously declined to take it, saying he did not con- 
sider an officer of the Exchange Bureau subject 
to capture, and, accordingly, instead of treating 
him as a prisoner, gave him a passport, and an 
escort to Richmond, where, however, at the ex- 
piration of about ten days, he was arrested by or- 
der of Secretary Stanton, and thrown into prison, 
from which he was not released until the lapse 
of two months, having been meanwhile indicted 
for treason, deprived of his official papers, and 
tried by a military commission, which, though 
"organized to convict," triumphantly acquitted 
him. This closing passage in his military expe- 
riences he imputes to the vindictiveness of Mr. 
Stanton, with whom, as the public will recall, 
he had a very sharp and bitter personal encoun- 
ter in the trial of Sickles, already mentioned. 

After the war he entered upon the practice of 
the law at Richmond, Va., where he now resides. 
He has addressed to the public several commu- 
nications vindicating the action of the Confed- 
erate States, in respect to the exchange of pris- 
oners, of which the latest appeared in the 
Philadelphia Weekly Times, of May 5th, 1877, 
as one of the contributions to the "Unwritten 
History of the War," now in course of publica- 
tion in that journal. This paper is very full and 



3 3 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



able, exhausting the subject from the Confederate 
point of view, and presenting matter which the 
historian of the civil war, when he .sits down to 
his task, will be certain not to overlook. As 
to where rests the responsibility for the cessation 
of general exchanges, into which the operation 
of the Cartel speedily ran, the'statements of the 
paper challenge the gravest attention, and, 
since he has been saddled with a share of this 
responsibility, it may not be unfitting to give 
here a short summary of his own account of the 
matter: The Cartel stipulated that all prisoners 
of war, in ten days after their capture, should 
be released at points agreed upon, those prison- 
ers not exchanged, for lack of equivalents in 
the hands of the other party, to be released 
on parole, until equivalents should be furnished, 
each party having the right, on discharging from 
parole prisoners of the other party, to discharge 
likewise an equal number of its own, furnishing 
at the same time, to the other party, a list of 
both groups ; so that under the Cartel no pris- 
oner could be held in captivity longer than ten 
days, after which every prisoner was entitled to 
b; released, with or without the liberty of return- 
ing to military duty, according as he should be 
exchanged or simply paroled. This humane 
arrangement was carried out, measurably, to the 
satisfaction of the two belligerents, until the sum- 
mer of 1S63, when the first serious difficulty, and 
indeed, the chief of all the difficulties, arose in 
the form of a dispute about paroles taken on the 
battle-field, unaccompanied by continuous posses- 
sion and actual delivery at the stipulated points, 
which paroles had previously been recognized by 
the Agents of Exchange, but which the Federal 
authorities, through general orders issued suc- 
cessively in February, April, and July, of that 
year, refused to recognize further, declaring, 
however, in the first two of these orders, that 
a prisoner so paroled must return into captivity, 
adding as the reason of the declaration, "His 
own government cannot at the same time dis- 
own his own engagement, and refuse his return 
as a prisoner." This fair and important decla- 
ration was omitted from the last of the three 
orders, which disowned at once such paroles, 



and the obligation of those giving them to re- 
turn as prisoners, and which, furthermore, the 
Federal Agent of Exchange construed as retroac- 
tive in effect, so as to control paroles given not 
only before it was in existence, but during the 
existence of orders inconsistent with it. The 
Confederate Agent, unwilling to risk the con- 
tinuance of the Cartel by insisting on the pre- 
vious practice of both sides, consented to accept 
these general orders, all three of them, as gov- 
erning the question, provided they should be 
applied according to their respective dates, to 
the end that the whole matter of paroles might 
be determined by the United States general 
order in force when the parole was given ; but 
this proposal was rejected, and he had no alter- 
native but to decline exchanges under the new 
rule, or stultify himself and humiliate his gov- 
ernment by conceding that a general order of 
the Federal War Department, detrimental and 
intended to be detrimental to his side, was 
in force before it was issued. Here, conse- 
quently, the Cartel went to pieces. It is true 
there were breakers besides, — such as the Con- 
federate legislation (never enforced) respecting 
negro soldiers and officers commanding them, 
the charge (circumstantially refuted in the paper 
under notice) of improper declarations of ex- 
change by the Confederate Agent, the arrest 
and detention of non-combatants, and so forth 
— but the rock that wrought the mischief was 
this question of paroles. It remains to be said 
that the Confederate Agent, from the suspension 
of the Cartel onward, spared no effort to revive 
it, even with modifications, if necessary, and, 
failing in that, to effect exchanges, so far as pos- 
sible, without it, negotiating with General But- 
ler a new Cartel, and, when that was rejected 
by General Grant, for the reason, as General 
Butler frankly reported, that exchange would 
then be disadvantageous in a military sense to 
the Federal side, waiving his previous demands, 
and consenting to accept the offer, repeatedly 
made by the Federal Agent, to exchange officer 
for officer, and man for man, and, on the failure 
of the Federal authorities to abide by their own 
offer, proposing finally to surrender to them 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



33 






their sick and wounded without requiring any 
equivalents, and, if the number for which trans- 
portation should be sent could not be made up 
from the sick and wounded, to supply the defi- 
ciency with well men, delivering, in fact, when 
transportation in response to this offer came tar- 
dily some three months afterwards, upwards of 
five thousand well men, without receiving or 
demanding one in return. These facts, and 
others, set forth at length in the paper above 
mentioned, and supported by the testimony of 
Federal officers, are certainly irreconcilable with 
the assumption that the Confederate government, 
or Mr. Ould, as its agent, was in any measure 
hostile to a full and fair exchange of prisoners 
as provided for in the original Cartel. On the 
contrary, they would seem to place him and his 
official superiors in an attitude in which they 
can well afford to wait for the coming historian, 
and from which, when he comes, he will not be 
likely to displace them. 



HON. C. G. MEMMINGER. 

South Carolina. 

"HRISTOPHER GUSTAVUS MEM- 
MINGER was born in Wurtemburg, 
Germany, January 7th, 1803, and is 
the son of Christopher Godfrey Mem- 
minger, a Captain in the army of the 
Elector of Suabia, which was afterwards erected 
by Napoleon into the kingdom of Wurtemburg. 
Fie died in 1803. His grandfather was an officer 
in the University of Babenhausen, and a cousin 
was a Professor in one of the German Univer- 
sities. August Goebert, the present manager of 
the railroad system of Belgium, married the 
daughter of one of his uncles. His mother 
emigrated to Charleston, S. C, when he was 
quite an infant, and soon died, leaving Chris- 
topher an orphan at the age of four years. He 
was placed in the Orphan Asylum at Charleston, 
and at the age of nine years adopted by Mr. 
Thomas Bennett, afterwards Governor of South 
Carolina, introduced into his family, and edu- 
3 




cated with the same care as his own children. 
He entered the South Carolina College at the 
early age of fourteen, and graduated thence 
with high honors in 1819, being then but 
sixteen years old. After graduation he con- 
tinued to form one of the Bennett family circle, 
and studied law under Mr. Joseph Bennett, who 
was then in partnership with Mr. Hunt, a gentle- 
man of great reputation in Charleston. His 
mother not having realized the advantage of 
having him naturalized before her death, it was 
impossible for him to be admitted to the Bar 
until that step had been taken, but under the 
auspices of Mr. Van Buren, an Act providing 
for such cases was passed, and after its passage 
he became an American citizen and was ad- 
mitted to the Bar of South Carolina in 1825. 
He at once commenced the practice of his pro- 
fession, and soon entered upon a successful 
career. In 1832 the question of nullification 
was exciting men's minds, and he became a 
member of the Union party in the State, and 
published the "Book of Nullification," a satire 
written in biblical style, which from its caustic 
wit contributed largely to the overthrow of that 
doctrine. He entered the House of Repre- 
sentatives as member for Charleston in 1836, 
and continued to represent his adopted city 
until i860. 

Soon after his election he was appointed 
Chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
Means, and was instrumental in shaping the 
financial policy of the State until the outbreak 
of the war in 1861. In 1839 a great panic oc- 
curred, during which all the public Banks of 
South Carolina suspended specie payments, upon 
which he initiated legislation, and assisted the 
Attorney-General in court in compelling the 
forfeiture of the charters of the suspending 
Banks. South Carolina was the only State that 
took this position and insisted on the Banks 
acting in good faith, and after the forfeiture 
terms were made wi h the Banks upon condi- 
tions which secured the State against a repetition 
of such a catastrophe. The State itself had a 
Bank in which a large amount of capital was 
invested, and Mr. Memminger advised the 



34 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



closing of this Institution as hostile to the 
interests of the other institutions of the coun- 
try. At that time the State Bank had assets 
sufficient to pay off the entire debt of the State, 
and still leave a surplus of $500,000 ; the gov- 
ernment however refused to take this course, 
and as a result the present great losses of the 
State on that account have accrued. In 1854, 
in co-operation with Mr. W. J. Bennett, the 
son of his benefactor, he undertook the refor- 
mation of the Public School system of the State : 
previous to that time there were many charity 
schools, which were availed of only by the poor- 
est section of the community. Mr. Bennett and 
himself travelled over the whole of the North- 
ern States, making themselves masters of the 
Public School system in operation there, and 
ascertaining what assistants they could get from 
thence to carry out the system in its in- 
tegrity. Mr. Memminger then took up the 
subject in the Legislature, and in spite of great 
opposition succeeded in passing an act giving 
authority to levy an education tax, to build 
school-houses and organize public schools. Upon 
the passage of this bill competent teachers were 
engaged from the North, and the new system 
was successfully inaugurated : at first there was 
great prejudice against these schools, the people 
regarding them as common charity schools, and 
refusing to send their children ; but when Mr. 
Memminger, among others, sent his own chil- 
dren to be educated there, all opposition was 
gradually overcome, and as one school after an- 
other was established they became at length 
quite popular. During this time Mr. Mem- 
minger was also a Trustee of the South Carolina 
College, and perhaps the most active member 
of that body in everything that tended to the 
advancement of that excellent institution. In 
1850 the agitation with the Federal Govern- 
ment was renewed, and the State once more 
divided, and secession openly advocated, Mr. 
Memminger affiliating himself with the Co- 
operation party, who advocated co-operation 
with other States, before any action should bs 
taken. A convention was called and the move- 
ment was stopped on the ground of want of 



co-operation. The agitation continued, how- 
ever, for a long time, and, finally, in 1S59, he 
was sent as a Commissioner to Virginia, to urge 
the co-operation of that State; but after address- 
ing the Virginia Legislature and using every 
means for the success of his mission, they de- 
cided that each State must act for itself, and in 
default of the support desired from Virginia, 
South Carolina determined on withdrawing from 
the Union. Had the co-operation scheme suc- 
ceeded with Virginia, there is little question 
that, strong as the sympathies of that State were 
for the Union, secession would never have taken 
place. A convention was now' summoned and 
met, in the first instance, in Columbia, but in 
consequence of some alarm of small-pox, it ad- 
journed to Charleston. Mr. Memminger was 
elected a member, and took a very active part in 
all its deliberations, which resulted in the pas- 
sage of the ordinance of Secession, December 
20th, 1S60. At this time he published a pam- 
phlet advocating a new scheme for a Confederate 
government. The convention still remained in 
session, and when a Confederate Congress at 
Montgomery was decided upon, he became a 
member thereof. When the Congress assembled 
he was made chairman of a committee to draft 
a constitution for the Confederate States, and 
made the first draft of the constitution, which 
was subsequently adopted. Upon the organiza- 
tion of the Government, he was appointed Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, and, without having the 
funds to purchase the most trifling article of 
stationery, he thoroughly systematized the De- 
partment, and continued to administer it until 
his resignation in the summer of 1864. His 
financial abilities had already been thoroughly 
tested, and, perhaps, no man in the Confederate 
States had clearer views on financial subjects, or 
such a wonderful stock of expedients to meet 
the constantly recurring demands for funds by 
the new Government. He negotiated a loan in 
Europe on cotton then in the Confederate States, 
for about ^3,000,000, devised all the means to 
raise the supplies needed to carry on the war, 
and when the first and only tax that was levied 
had produced but half of the sum expected, lie 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



35 



it was who devised the "tax in kind" which 
successfully solved the problem and enabled the 
war to be prosecuted with renewed vigor. He 
first devised the plan of issuing Confederate 
notes, to be taken up by bonds, a plan after- 
wards adopted by Secretary Chase in the United 
States with great success. Innumerable difficul- 
ties stared him in the face; it was impossible 
to get suitable paper for the notes or bonds, and 
there was only one man in the Confederacy, at 
New Orleans, who was competent to engrave 
them, the process being so slow that he was 
compelled to have them lithographed, though at 
the risk of counterfeits. In the absence of suit- 
able paper he was compelled to buy a paper-mill 
at Richmond, and make such alterations as 
would enable the proper bank-note paper to be 
made. All this took much time, but in antici- 
pation of such difficulties, he had sent to Eng- 
land for lithographic stones, paper, and all the 
necessary appliances; but, as luck would have 
it, one of the first ships captured by the Federals 
was the one containing these much-needed sup- 
plies. 

The Confederate government, and by impli- 
cation its Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Mem- 
minger, has, in some quarters, been censured for 
not possessing itself of the cotton crop, as a basis 
of future credit. That such censure is wholly 
undeserved will appear from the following facts: 
The cotton crop of 1860-61 was officially stated 
at 3,849,000 bales ; of this the Southern States 
consumed 193,000 bales, leaving for exportation 
3,656,000 bales. 

Up to February 28th, the month in which the 
Confederate government was organized, 3,000,- 
000 bales had been received at the seaports, and 
the great bulk of it exported to Europe, and 
sold to New England spinners. By the first of 
May, 586,000 bales more had been received and 
sold. England and the Continent took 3,127,- 
000 bales, New England took 654,000 bales, 
making a total of 3,781,000 bales. 

It will be thus seen that before the new gov- 
ernment was fully organized, the entire crop 
was beyond its reach. No part of the new crop 
was ready for the market before the ensuing 



September. The blockade was instituted in 
May, and there were no vessels in the ports of 
the Confederacy after the expiration of the sixty 
days allowed to foreign tonnage under the block- 
ade proclamation. Again, had it been possible 
for the Confederate government to have gained 
control of the crop, where could the vessels — ' 
some 4,000, allowing 1,000 bales to a ship — ■ 
have been procured in the face of the notifica- 
tion of the blockade, and was not as much of 
the cotton shipped by private enterprise as could 
have been shipped by the government ? When 
so shipped the proceeds of the sale were, in 
most cases, sold to the government in the shape 
of bills of exchange. The superior advantages 
of this plan is evinced by the fact that through- 
out the year the government exchanged its own 
notes for bills on England at par, with which it 
paid for all the arms and munitions of war. 
This vast amount of cotton could only have 
been procured in one of three ways — by seizure, 
by purchase, or by donation. Certainly, no 
one at the first inception of the Confederacy, 
would have ventured to propose to seize upon 
the crop then in the hands of the planters, and 
which furnished their only means of subsistence. 
With respect to purchase at the commencement 
of the government, the treasury had neither 
funds nor bank-note paper on which to print a 
note, and months elapsed before bonds cr notes 
could be engraved and printed, and those con- 
stituted the entire currency. And when the 
mechanical difficulties were overcome, the finan- 
cial presented an equal barrier. The scheme 
for raising money adopted by Congress was to 
issue Confederate notes, funding the redundant 
notes in interest-bearing bonds; and all pay- 
ments at the Treasury were made in those notes. 
The daily demands on the Treasury greatly ex- 
ceeded the means of supply. If, instead of ap- 
plying the notes to the daily payments required 
at the Treasury, they had been used to purchase 
cotton, the Treasury would have found itself 
filled with cotton, without any money to meet 
the wants of the government until that cotton 
could be shipped abroad and sold. If, instead 
of payment in notes, the bonds of the govern- 



36 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ment had been used to purchase the cotton crop, 
those bonds would have been thrown in the 
market to meet the necessities of the planters, 
and their value as a means of funding the sur- 
plus currency would have been destroyed. It is 
obvious to any one acquainted with finance that 
this would have broken down the Confederate 
currency within the first year of its existence, 
whereas the plan pursued sustained its credit 
until broken down by calamities under which no 
credit could survive. The only remaining mode, 
then, in which the cotton could have been pro- 
cured was by donation. So far was this donation 
from being possible, that the Treasury actually 
had to issue a circular in response to applica- 
tions, to the Government for aid to the planters 
in making loans to them, and not a bale of the 
crop of that year was contributed to the Gov- 
ernment. An effort was made to get pledges of 
the next year's crop, in exchange for Govern- 
ment bonds. To accomplish this it was deemed 
necessary to allow the planters to get their own 
price through their own factors, without allow- 
ing the government to fix its price, and the 
whole amount thus pledged did not reach fifty 
millions, or about two months' expenses of the 
government, of which, perhaps, one-third was 
never received. Every one conversant with the 
politics of the. day knows that it was the cur- 
rent expectation that the blockade could not be 
continued for a year. The United States Gov- 
ernment equally supposed that the war would 
be of short duration, as is apparent from Presi- 
dent Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops 
for ninety days ; there could, therefore, be no 
motive to induce the Confederate government 
to store up cotton as a basis of credit. When it 
became apparent that the blockade and the war 
would continue, the government then made 
arrangements for using cotton as the basis of a 
foreign loan ; and the large cotton-loan, nego- 
tiated in Europe by Messrs. Erlanger, furnished 
abundant resources to the government for its 
supplies from abroad. At no time was it in the 
power of the government to get possession of 
the cotton crop, unless it had seized the same 
by force, and by force compelled payment in a 



depreciated currency, a high-handed course 
which could never receive the sanction of the 
statesmen who administered the Confederate 
government. The only approximation to it was 
in the shape of a tax in kind when the currency 
failed to command supplies, and which was 
made as just and equal as any other tax. The 
truth is, that instead of censure of the financial 
administration of the Confederate government 
being deserved, there is no instance on record 
where a war of such dimensions, in a constantly 
decreasing territory, has been sustained for four 
years by mere financial expedients. Early in 
1864, in submitting his report as Secretary, Mr. 
Memminger, in view of the extreme and con- 
stantly increasing depreciation of the Confed- 
erate currency, proposed a scheme to Congress 
for a new loan to take up the outstanding cur- 
rency, by the sale of the bonds of the loan at 
par, and a tax of five per cent, on all prop- 
erty to be paid in coin, or in the interest-cou- 
pons of the bonds, and by this loan it was pro- 
posed to consolidate all the forms of public debt. 
By this scheme he claimed that a reduction of 
the prices of all articles of subsistence would 
ensue, and a permanent reduction of the volume 
of the currency. The Confederate Congress, 
however, disapproved of his scheme, substituting 
another; upon this he intimated his wish to re- 
tire from the Treasurership. The scheme pro- 
posed by the Congress required to be put in 
action within ninety days, and as his resignation 
would render that impossible, there being no 
one else acquainted with the details, he remained 
in office sufficiently long to put the scheme in 
motion. In July, 1S64, he resigned, and retired 
to his country residence at Flat Rock, North 
Carolina, where he remained until 1S67, when 
he returned to Charleston. 

At this period the mountain country was in a 
very dangerous and disorganized condition ; a 
number of deserters and other lawless characters 
having banded together in the mountain districts, 
maintained a perfect system of brigandage, rob- 
bing and shooting with impunity, and Mr. 
Memminger's house was kept in a perfect state 
of siege, musket-holes being bored in his house, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



37 



and chcveaux de friese placed in front of the 
windows to guard against attack. In 1867 he 
resumed the practice of the law in Charleston, 
and finding that during his absence the phos- 
phatic deposits had been discovered, at once or- 
ganized a large company, which manufactured 
the first sulphuric acid that had been made in 
the South. This company was also the first, or 
second, to commence the manufacture of fertil- 
izers, which has since become such an immense 
industry in the South. After the reorganization 
of the government, he again took the public 
schools in hand, and brought them once more 
into order. The Normal School, to which he 
devoted much attention, is now named the 
Memminger School, in his honor. He studi- 
ously avoided politics, until the inauguration of 
the campaign of 1876, for the purpose of wrest- 
ing the State from corrupt, radical rule, when 
the people insisted on electing him to the Legis- 
lature. Among other important services he has 
since rendered has been the reorganization and 
speedy reopening of the South Carolina College, 
which is unquestionably largely due to his exer- 
tions. In his professional capacity he appeared 
in the courts and assisted in overthrowing the 
scrip of the Blue Ridge Railroad, and having 
established the fraudulent nature of the Conver- 
sion Bonds, obtained an injunction against them 
with the aid of Senator M. C. Butler. On the 
vexed question of the State debt, of which the 
Republican party had already fixed the amount, 
and agreed on a compromise of fifty cents on 
the dollar, Mr. Memminger was in favor of re- 
garding the question as un fait accompli, and 
acknowledging the debt as it stood : many of 
the Democrats, however, wished to repudiate a 
portion of the debt as fraudulent, although much 
of it considered of that nature had been already 
paid, and it was eventually decided to refer all 
the portion in dispute to the Court of Claims. 
Mr. Memminger is a member of the Episcopalian 
Church, one of the Standing Committee of the 
Diocese of South Carolina, and has frequently 
been a representative at the General and State 
Conventions. 

Mr. Memminger is a gentleman of varied tal- 



ents: to see him leading the Assembly by the 
force of his arguments on almost every subject 
before that body, one would say he was a born 
statesman ; to observe him at the head of a 
Finance Committee, it would seem that nature 
had intended him for a minister of the Treas- 
ury; to know him in a "cause in a Court of 
Equity, it seemed as if he had devoted himself 
entirely to that branch of jurisprudence ; while 
to follow him into a Court of Law before a jury, 
you would be struck with his marvellous power 
of statement, and his great influence in dealing 
with the facts of a case. Clearness, logic, and 
aptness of illustration are his pre-eminent men- 
tal traits, and his success as a lawyer is due as 
much to his great business capacity as to his 
learning and oratorical power. Always ready at 
figures, prompt to explain difficulties, throwing 
off all extraneous matter, and coming down to 
the real points at issue, he furnishes an example 
to young men to make themselves master of 
business detail first, and then adorn with learn- 
ing and all the elegance of style and eloquence 
at command. He has ever been a man of sin- 
cere religious convictions, and from early life a 
member and active supporter of the Episcopal 
Church. His whole life and influence have 
always been on the side of law, order, education, 
religion, and good government, and he has 
proved himself one of the most useful members 
of the community in which he has passed his life. 
Simple, hearty, and unostentatious, the refine- 
ments of social life have ever had more attrac- 
tions for him than the wider field of ambition. 
His long popularity in South Carolina has been 
the result of his acknowledged integrity or char- 
acter, talents, and great business capacity, and 
he has throughout his life so shaped his course 
as to secure the solid and lasting respect of«*his 
fellow-citizens, rather than to court the enthusi- 
asm of fleeting popularity. He has been twice 
married; first, in 1832, to Miss Mary Wilkinson, 
daughter of Dr. Willis Wilkinson, formerly of 
Virginia, and brother of Commodore Wilkinson ; 
and, second, March 27th, 1878, to Miss Sarah 
A. Wilkinson, sister of the above. He has eight 
children living; his eldest son, Dr. Thomas Ben- 



3S 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




nett Memminger, is a physician of repute at St. 
Louis ; the Rev. Robert Withers Memminger is 
a distinguished divine of Charleston, author of 
"What is Religion," "Present Issues," and 
"Greatness;" Christopher Gustavus Memmin- 
ger, an orange-grower in Florida; Allard Mem- 
minger, analyt ical chemist of Charleston ; Edward 
R. Memminger, now studying law; Ellen Mem- 
minger, engaged in orange-raising in Florida; 
Mary, wife of Mr. Van Cotte, an engineer in Brus- 
sels, and Virginia, wife of Ralph J. Middleton, Jr., 
of Charleston. 

CHIEF JUSTICE SMITH. 
North Carolina. 

ILLIAM NATHAN HARRELL 
SMITH, Chief Justice of North Car- 
olina, was born September 24th, 1812, 
in Murfreesboro, Hertford county, N. 
C. Pie is the son of William L. Smith, 
a native of Lyme, Conn., who studied medicine 
and removed to Hertford county, N. C, where 
he married, and died in 1813 ; and a half-brother 
of the Rev. Dr. James Murdock, D. D., the dis- 
tinguished ecclesiastical historian, orientalist, 
and philosopher, who was accustomed every 
Sabbath, at least in his later years, to read a 
chapter of the Bible in seven different tongues. 
He received his preliminary education in Mur- 
freesboro, Kingston, R. I., and Colchester, 
Conn., at which last place he was prepared for 
college, entering Yale in 1S30, and graduating 
in 1834; Morrison R. Waite, Chief Justice of 
the United States, William M. Evarts, Secretary 
of State, and Edwards Pierrepont, late Minister 
to Great Britain, having been Freshmen in his 
Senior year. From the Academical department 
of Yale he passed to the Law department, then 
in the hands of Judge David S. Daggett, and 
Professor Hitchcock, under whom he qualified 
himself for the bar, and, after a visit of some 
six months to Texas, began the practice of his 
profession in his native town. In 1840 he was 
elected to represent Hertford county in the 
House of Commons of North Carolina, and in 
1S4S to represent the Hertford district i:i the 



Senate of the State, during his service in which 
he was chosen by the Legislature State Solici- 
tor for the Superior Courts of the First Judi- 
cial District, comprising the northeastern por- 
tion of the State, an office that he filled for 
two consecutive terms of four years each. On 
the expiration of his second term as Solicitor in 
1857, he was nominated by the Whigs of his 
district for Congress, and defeated by a small 
majority, which, however, he overcame at the 
next election in 1859, and took his seat in the 
House at Washington just as the sectional con- 
flict was on the eve of merging into civil war, 
becoming himself, at once, a prominent figure 
in the parliamentary struggles of the period. In 
the long and excited strife, consuming eight 
weeks, which preceded the organization of the 
House, he was nominated for the Speakership 
by the Southern Whigs, in opposition to John 
Sherman, nominated by the Republicans, and 
Thomas S. Bocock, the Democratic nominee. 
Some of the more moderate Republicans, known 
as the "People's Party," having signified their 
intention to vote for Mr. Smith, a tacit agree- 
ment was made by which the majority of the 
Democrats were to transfer their votes from Mr. 
Bocock to Mr. W. N. H. Smith, and he would 
unquestionably have been elected Speaker, but 
that refusing to pledge himself to Mr. E. Joy 
Morris, of Pennsylvania, one of the Republicans 
alluded to, to constitute the Committee of Ways 
and Means in the interest of Protection, the Re- 
publicans, with the honorable exception of Mr. 
Milhvard, of Pennsylvania, withheld their votes, 
and Mr. Sherman having withdrawn, Mr. Pen- 
nington, of New Jersey, was finally elected 
Speaker. He remained in his seat until the 
close of the session, being present at the inau- 
guration of President Lincoln, in March, 1861. 
He was a member of the Confederate Congress 
during its existence, being elected to the Pro- 
visional Congress in July, 1861, and afterwards 
to the first and second permanent Confederate 
Congresses, representing the First Electoral 
District of North Carolina. During the course 
of this Congressional service he was closely asso- 
ciated with ex-Governor W. A. Graham, then a 




46 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



39 



member of the Confederate Senate from North 
Carolina, and John Baldwin, a Confederate 
Representative from Virginia, two of the most 
discreet and enlightened statesmen of the South. 
Almost the whole of the legislation was in the 
direction of raising supplies, and the greater 
part of it in secret session. 

On the iSth of March, 1865, the second 
permanent Congress adjourned, to be followed 
in less than one month by the memorable scene 
at Appomattox Court House, after which he re- 
tired to Murfreesboro, and for a brief period 
employed himself with his private affairs. Be- 
fore the close of the year he was elected to the 
House of Commons of the State, in which he 
zealously promoted the reconstitution of the 
State government under the plan of President 
Johnson. During the exciting Presidential can- 
vass of 1868, the action of the Judges of the 
Supreme Court of North Carolina called forth a 
solemn protest from the Bar against judicial 
interference in political affairs, which was signed 
by one hundred and eight members of the Bar, 
including B. F. Moore, ex-Governor Thos. 
Bragg and E. Graham Haywood, three of its 
more prominent members. This protest was 
treated by Chief Justice Pearson as contempt of 
court, and argument was heard thereon at length. 
Mr. W. N. H. Smith was associated with ex- 
Judge Battles, ex-Judge Fowle, ex-Judge S. J. 
Person, and ex-Judge Barnes for the defence, and 
in an able speech bore eloquent testimony to Mr. 
Moore's consistent support of the dignity and 
prerogatives of the judicial tribunals of the 
country, and succeeded in obtaining a motion 
to discharge the rule on payment of costs. In 
March, 1870, he removed to Norfolk, Va., still 
retaining, however, his practice in the courts of 
North Carolina. In the winter of that year 
Governor W. W. Holden was impeached for 
misdemeanor in office and tried before the 
Senate of the State, sitting as a High Court of 
Impeachment, presided over by the Chief Jus- 
tice, the trial being protracted over many weeks. 
Mr. Smith, although a political opponent, was 
selected by Governor Holden as one of his 
counsel, and made the closing argument in his 



defence, vindicating his official conduct with 
masterly power. Two years spent in Norfolk, 
he returned to North Carolina, settling in 
Raleigh, where he formed a law partnership 
with George N. Strong, under the name of 
"Smith & Strong," which continued until the 
elevation of his partner to the Bench. In 1873 
his political disabilities were removed by a 
special Act of Congress, there being only one 
other person in the State to whom the Act 
applied — Mr. Burton Craige, a former member, 
like himself, of the Federal and Confederate 
Congresses. He received, in 1874, the degree 
of LL.D. from the Wake Forrest College in 
North Carolina. At the general meeting of the 
Alumni of Yale, on the 24th of June, 1874, 
being the fortieth anniversary of his class, of 
which only twenty-five out of the original sixty- 
five were present, he made a touching and beau- 
tiful speech to his old class-mates, many of whom 
had not met each other since they parted forty 
years before. On the 12th of January, 1878, he 
was appointed by Governor Vance Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, to fill 
the vacancy caused by the death of Chief Justice 
Pearson, thus receiving the unusual honor of 
being elevated at once from the Bar to the head 
of the Bench. The appointment, totally un- 
sought by him, was made with the concurrence 
alike of the Bar and the public, to whom his 
abilities as a lawyer and his traits as a man, 
pointed him out as the fittest person for the 
place. To a legal mind of a high order, en- 
riched by wide and varied learning, the spoil 
of unremitting study, he adds the rare faculty of 
seizing the points of a case at a glance, and the 
power, yet more rare perhaps, of maintaining 
his intellectual balance in the presence of all 
snares and under all surprises. He is, besides, 
a writer noted for the perspicuity and purity of 
his style, and a cogent and eloquent speaker, 
having especially excelled as a pleader in the 
courts of last resort, where his practice has ex- 
ceeded that of any other lawyer in the State. 
He is one of the most courteous and pleasant 
gentlemen, scrupulously just, and possesses singu- 
lar modesty and purity of character. He has 



40 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ever been a consistent conservative, and his 
patriotism and zealous devotion to the great 
principles of constitutional liberty are un- 
doubted. Among the more celebrated cases in 
which he has been engaged may be mentioned 
the contested will case of Wood vs. Sawyer, 
June term, 1867, which lasted four weeks and 
ended with a verdict establishing the will. An 
appeal was had to the Supreme Court, and Mr. 
Smith and a large array of counsel appeared 
contra, the will being admitted to probate. 
Swasey vs. North Carolina Railroad Co. and 
others, June term, 1874 — Chief Justice Waite, 
delivering the opinion of the court, held : 
1 st. That, although the State, when a party to 
the record, cannot be sued in the Circuit Court, 
yet its agents (if the State be directly interested), 
when the State was not a party to the record, 
could be. 2d. That the stock of the State in 
the North Carolina Railroad was liable for any 
interest that might be due to the private share- 
holders of said road. 3d. Any dividends due 
the State from its stock was also liable for the 
same. 4th. All moneys in the treasury of the 
State not otherwise appropriated were likewise 
liable. These liabilities arising under the acts 
for the construction and completion of the road, 
which authorized such pledges " in addition to" 
the pledge of the public faith of the State. 
Self vs. Jenkins, June term, 1874, before Chief 
Justice Waite. Mandamus to compel the State 
treasurer to pay over to holders of special tax- 
bonds $240, 000 that was in his hands, and which 
had been collected under a clause in the Acts 
under which the bonds had been issued. This 
suit was brought under the advice of Reverdy 
Johnson and other able counsel, and the court 
decided adversely to the plaintiff's claim. The 
last two cases are not only interesting to the 
profession as adjudications of questions of vast 
importance, but the decisions are intimately 
connected with the interest of every tax-payer 
in the State of North Carolina. The opinions 
delivered were well considered, after able argu- 
ments pro and con, and were those of the high- 
est judicial officer in our government. 

Not only in the comparatively passionless 



sphere of the higher courts, however, has he 
proved his strength, his appeals to the panel 
having been scarcely less famous than his argu- 
ments to the Bench. In a case in Pasquotank 
county, in which one Sawyer was indicted for 
the murder of the father of Senator Pools' first 
wife but acquitted, the evidence being purely 
circumstantial, his speech was declared, by 
George E. Badger, the eminent statesman and 
lawyer, who defended the prisoner, to have been 
one of the ablest prosecuting speeches that he 
had ever heard. 

He. married, January, 1839, Mary O. Wise, 
daughter of William B. Wise, merchant of 
Murfreesboro, N. C, and has two sons, the 
eldest, William W. Smith, who is a member of 
the firm of Lawrence & Smith, Insurance Agents, 
Raleigh, N. C, and E. Chambers Smith, now a 
student of Davidson College, Mecklenburg 
county, N. C. 



EX-GOVERNOR WATTS. 

Alabama. 

jfij^HOMAS HILL WATTS was born Jan- 
! uary 3d, 1819, in Butler county, Ala., 
then a Territory. The place of his 
birth was within a mile of Fort Bibb 
— so named from Hon. William Wyat 
Bibb, Governor of the Territory and after- 
wards first Governor of the State — about sixteen 
miles west of the present town of Greenville. 
The Watts family are of Welsh descent, and first 
settled in Virginia, where Thomas Watts, grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, was born ; 
he became a sergeant in the company raised 
in Fauquier county, Va., for the revolutionary 
army by John Marshall, afterwards the world- 
renowned Chief Justice of the United States ; 
served during the whole of the Revolution- 
ary War, and, in 1797, removed into Greene 
county, Ga. His wife was of Dutch descent, and 
after his death married Governor Rabun, of 
Georgia. John Hughs Watts, son of the pre- 
ceding, and father of T. II. Watts, was born in 






7 ^t^ 



aJLA^f (\£eu^^ 




^n^— 



/ ' 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4i 



Fauquier county.. Va., was a man of remark- 
ably strong mind and practical sense, with 
an intuitive knowledge of men. He married 
Prudence Hill, daughter of Thomas Hill, of 
Clarke county, Ga. She was remarkable for 
her industry and benevolence of heart, and lived 
to see the youngest of her many children grow 
to man and womanhood. They removed, in 
1818, to Butler county, Ala., then a wild, un- 
settled country, the eastern portion of which 
was the Creek Indians' country; the Indians 
had but recently abandoned it and massacres 
were still frequent ; among others killed was 
Colonel W. Butler, after whom the county was 
named. John H. Watts had a large family and 
was possessed of but slender means. Thomas 
H., his eldest son, was sent to one of the primi- 
tive schools of the neighborhood, then conducted 
by Burwell Rogers, the school-house in use 
being built of unhewn logs. At sixteen years of 
age he was sent to Airy Mount Academy, Dallas 
county, then a flourishing school under the 
direction of James A. McLean, an accomplished 
scholar from Edinburgh, Scotland ; here his 
studies took a much wider range, and he made 
such satisfactory progress that his preceptor 
earnestly advised him to prepare himself for 
college. His father was keenly alive to the im- 
portance of a university education, but in view 
of the large family he had to bring up, did not 
consider himself justified in paying the college 
expenses of his eldest son, and yet give him an 
equal share with his other children in the prop- 
erty he would leave them at his death. 

Thomas at once caught the suggestion, and 
told his father that if he would agree to pay his 
expenses while at college, he would forfeit all 
claim to any share of whatever property he 
might leave his children. This contract was 
mutually agreed to and faithfully kept by the 
son, and when his father died in 1841, and it 
was found that by a will executed before the 
bargain was made, that his property had been 
equally divided among all his children, then 
twelve in number, share and share alike, he filed 
in the Probate Court of Butler county a state- 
ment of the terms of this contract, and formally 



relinquished to his brothers and sisters all inter- 
est whatever in his father's estate. In after 
years he never had occasion to regret his honora- 
ble fulfilment of a verbal promise made when 
only sixteen years of age, by which he resigned 
all participation in the division of property that 
he might legally have claimed. It was at first 
intended that he should enter the University of 
Alabama, but a disturbance having taken place 
between the students and the faculty, which 
threatened to close that- institution, he deter- 
mined to enter the University of Virginia. 

In November, 1830, he started from home, 
going by stage from Selma to Montgomery and 
thence to Augusta, where he saw one of the first 
railroads built in this country and travelled 
upon it to Charleston, from whence he took 
steamer to Norfolk, and up the James river to 
Richmond and so by stage to Charlottesville. 
In December, 1836, he entered the University of 
Virginia as a student, in the middle of a session, 
and applied himself diligently to his studies for 
the next three years, graduating in all the 
schools except that of Greek. While at the 
University he was an omnivorous reader, pursu- 
ing his investigations into every subject with all 
the ardor and enthusiasm of youth. The perusal 
of such works as Hume on Miracles, Volney's 
Ruins, d'Holbach and others, led him at one 
time to reject the truth of the Bible. During 
his stay the celebrated Alexander Campbell, who 
had been elected an honorary member of the 
society, was invited by the Jefferson Society to 
deliver a lecture to the students, and a large 
number both of professors and students were 
present. Mr. Campbell was, perhaps, one of 
the ablest debaters ever heard in this country — ■ 
of great acuteness of intellect, wonderful pow- 
ers of logic and analysis, and learned in all 
science, physical and moral. In this lecture his 
great powers were displayed in vindicating the 
truth of the Bible as God's word. Hume, a 
fascinating writer and an especial favorite with 
the students, was handled as a giant would han- 
dle a baby ; his definition of a miracle was shown 
to be untrue; the whole field of physical science 
was surveyed with a master-hand, and the result 



42 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



was, that Hume was no longer looked upon by 
the students as an authority for rejecting the 
Bible. The whole foundation of Mr. Watts' 
infidelity was at once swept away, but it was not 
until August, 1846, that he made a public pro- 
fession of religion, when at Greenville, under 
the ministry of that venerable and beloved 
Christian minister, David Lee, he put on Christ 
by public profession and baptism. 

In July, 1840, he left the university, and 
returned home in all the turmoil of the presi- 
dential election of that year, in which he took 
an active part, when the Whig candidate, Gen- 
eral W. H. Harrison, defeated Martin Van Buren 
for a second term. In 1841 he moved to Green- 
ville, and, having passed his examination and 
received his license from Judge E. Pickens, 
commenced the practice of his profession in 
that town, and soon acquired reputation as a 
promising young lawyer. In 1842 he was 
elected to the State Legislature from Butler 
county, and was re-elected in 1844, an d again 
in 1845. A circumstance occurred in connection 
with his election in 1844, which had a most- 
salutary effect on public opinion. Mr. Watts 
had, since the spring of 1843, abandoned the 
use of ardent spirits as a beverage, and has ever 
since lived vrp to his professions: previous to the 
election of 1844, it had been the practice for 
candidates in Butler county to treat their sup- 
porters, and during this canvass Mr. Watts was 
publicly invited, before a large audience, to pay 
for his share of the liquor then on the ground. 
He at once declined, and proceeded to discuss 
from the hustings the propriety of the vicious 
practice, the result being that the other candi- 
dates, who had thus publicly invited him to share 
in the " treating," were compelled by public 
sentiment, not only to promise not to invite him 
to " treat" again, but to pledge themselves not 
to do so either directly or indirectly during the 
canvass. Mr. Watts was elected by a very large 
majority, receiving the votes of nearly every 
liquor-drinker in the country, without reference 
to party, for his bold stand against the evil prac- 
tice of treating at elections. So long as he 
remained a resident, there was no further " treat- 



ing" by candidates in Butler county. On the 1st 
of January, 1847, tne seat of government having 
been removed from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery, 
he removed to the latter city, and entered on 
the duties of his profession with vigor and suc- 
cess. In 1848 he took into partnership with him 
Jefferson F. Jackson, afterwards United States 
District Attorney for the southern district of 
Alabama, who died in 1862. In 185 1 T. J. 
Judge entered the firm, and it became Watts, 
Judge & Jackson. He was a man of rare abil- 
ities, and in 1865 became Associate Justice of 
the Supreme Court of Alabama, which office he 
was compelled to leave under the reconstruction 
measures in 1868 ; in 1874 he was elected to the 
Supreme Bench with Judges BrickelLand Man- 
ning, and died, March, 1876. In 1859 D. S. 
Troy was added to the partnership, under the 
style of Watts, Judge, Jackson & Troy; he 
afterwards gained distinction as the Colonel of 
the Sixtieth Alabama, and in a gallant charge 
before Petersburg received a dangerous wound, 
and being carried into the enemy's lines, was 
reported dead. He is now member of the State 
Senate from Montgomery county. Governor 
Watts represented the county of Montgomery in 
the House of Representatives in 1849, an d in 
1853 was elected to the State Senate from Autauga 
and Montgomery counties. While in the Senate, 
he took the initiatory steps towards a geological 
survey of the State of Alabama. Two years 
later he became the nominee of the American 
or "Know Nothing" party for Congress, and 
in an exciting contest with Colonel Dowdell, of 
Chambers, was defeated by a very small major- 
ity. In 1S60 he was a prominent supporter of 
the Bell and Everett ticket in that stormy 
presidential campaign, hoping that the election 
of moderate-minded men, who would adminis- 
ter the Government with an equal regard to the 
rights of all the States, would obviate the 
necessity of secession, to which he was strongly 
opposed. But the election of Abraham Lincoln 
by a purely sectional vote, upon a platform of 
principles which were regarded as destructive 
to the best interests of the South, and to con- 
stitutional government, convinced him of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



43 



futility of all attempts at compromise, and 
he therefore united with his fellow-citizens in 
withdrawing his native State from the Union. 
Immediately after the meeting of the Electoral 
College, Governor A. B. Moore issued writs of 
election for a Constitutional Convention of the 
State, and Hon. W. L. Yancey and Mr. Watts 
were elected from Montgomery county. The 
convention met in Montgomery, January 7th, 
1861, and Mr. Watts was made Chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee, the most important 
section of that body. On the nth of January 
an ordinance was passed, by a vote of sixty-one 
to thirty-nine, "to dissolve the union between 
the State of Alabama and other States, under 
the compact styled the Constitution of the 
United States of America." Delegates were 
then chosen by the convention to represent the 
State in a provisional Congress of the seceding 
States, which was invited to meet in Montgom- 
ery. This provisional Congress — representing 
seven States, viz., South Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and 
Texas — assembled in Montgomery, February 
4th, 1. 86 1, adopted the provisional Constitu- 
tion, and elected Jefferson Davis provisional 
President, and Alexander H. Stephens provi- 
sional Vice-President of the Confederate States. 
The Constitutional Convention, after a brief 
recess, and a short continuance of the session, 
adjourned sine die, March 21st, 1861, after rati- 
fying the Constitution of the Confederate States 
of America, establishing annual instead of bien- 
nial sessions of the General Assembly, and 
making other changes in the fundamental laws 
of minor importance. In August, 1861, Mr. 
Watts received a very complimentary vote for 
Governor, although he had declined to sanction 
the use of his name for that office. After the 
formation of the provisional Confederate Gov- 
ernment he raised, in the summer of 1861, the 
Seventeenth Alabama regiment of infantry, and 
was elected its Colonel, serving at Pensacola, 
where he was present during the bombardment 
of that city by the Federal fleet, and afterwards 
at Corinth. When the permanent Government 
of the Confederate States was established, he 



was selected, without solicitation and without 
his knowledge even, by President Davis as the 
Attorney-General of the Confederate States. 
He at once resigned his command, and, on the 
9th of April, 1862, entered on the duties of his 
office in Richmond, Va. In August, 1863, 
while absent from the State, and against his 
expressed wishes, he was elected Governor of 
Alabama, by a large majority over the incum- 
bent, Hon. John Gill Shorter, of Barbour. He 
resigned the office of Attorney-General of the 
Confederate States, October 1st, and was inau- 
gurated Governor of Alabama, at Montgomery, 
December 1st, 1863, when he delivered the 
following inaugural address before the Alabama 
Legislature : 

" Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Repi-e- 
sentatives: Called by the voice of the people 
of Alabama, without solicitation from me, to 
preside over the destiny of the State for the 
next two years, I cannot feel otherwise than 
grateful for this generous manifestation of confi- 
dence and esteem. In a time of profound peace 
such an honor might well be deemed the fit 
reward of a lifetime of public service. But con- 
ferred when the duties of the office have been 
increased a hundred-fold by the multiplied busi- 
ness created by the greatest war of modern 
times, when the clangor of war is heard all 
around us, and the sighs for our fallen brave fill 
every passing breeze, I scarcely know whether 
thanks are due for the grave responsibilities with 
which this election clothes me. I feel that I 
shall have need of the constant support and 
hearty sympathies of an indulgent people, and I 
pray God to give me such strength and wisdom 
as will enable me so to conduct our affairs, that 
no detriment shall accrue to the people of Ala- 
bama, and no stain shall mar the beauty of her 
honored name. Multiplied, grave and onerous 
as the duties of the office may now be, still I 
cannot deny, whilst entering on the discharge 
of its high functions, I feel some such pride and 
pleasure as a dutiful son must feel when obeying 
the will of a noble mother. 

"Gentlemen: On the nth day of January, 
1861, the sovereign people of Alabama, through 



44 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



their delegates in convention assembled, de- 
clared by solemn ordinance, that the bonds 
which bound her to the Government of the 
United States were severed. In thus deliber- 
ately acting, the people of Alabama only exer- 
cised a right belonging to every free people. 
In the days of 1776, our forefathers declared 
that to secure life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness, 'governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their powers from the consent of 
the governed ; and that whenever any form of 
government becomes destructive of these ends, 
it is the right of the people to alter or abolish 
it, and to institute new government, laying its 
foundations on such principles, and organizing 
its powers in such form as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happiness.' 
After a war of seven years, checkered with vari- 
ous defeats and victories, our revolutionary sires 
achieved a crowning triumph, and wrung from 
the grasp of British tyranny their liberties and 
independence. The reluctant consent of Great 
Britain was given to the great principles of free- 
dom for which they contended. In the treaty 
of peace which closed this revolutionary struggle, 
the old thirteen States, naming them separately 
and distinctly, were acknowledged by Great 
Britain to be 'free, sovereign and independent 
States.' 

" France was a party to this treaty, having given 
of her blood and treasure to accomplish this 
grand result. The articles of confederation 
formed and adopted during the progress of the 
war by the several States, then united in a com- 
mon cause, declared ' that each State retains its 
sovereignty, freedom and independence, and 
every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not 
by this confederation expressly delegated to the 
United States in Congress assembled.' These 
articles likewise declared that they were formed 
for a confederation and perpetual union between 
the States agreeing to them. After the pressure 
of this war was over, and when the recollection 
of common dangers and difficulties became less 
vivid, a new Constitution, that of 1787, was 
formed by the States then composing the Union, 
and after being thus formed, w.is submitted 



separately to a convention of delegates chosen 
by each State, for its free acceptance or rejec- 
tion. This Constitution was to be binding only 
between those States ratifying the same. Each 
one of the States, at different times, some 
promptly, some with lingering reluctance, sepa- 
rately and independently of each other, withdrew 
from the articles of confederation, and thus 
formed a new government under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. The sovereign -peo- 
ple of each State, through their own delegates 
in convention assembled, adopted this Constitu- 
tion to govern them in their intercourse and 
relations with foreign nations, and in their rela- 
tions and intercourse with each other. The 
same sovereign people in each State who adopted 
State Constitutions, and who, throughout our 
political history as the United States, made, 
altered, or abolished their State Constitutions, 
ratified and adopted as their federal Constitu- 
tion, the Constitution of 1787. In this Consti- 
tution the right of the sovereign people of each 
State to alter or abolish their government and 
to establish new governments for their safety 
and happiness, is not surrendered; neither is it 
prohibited. The Constitution expressly pro- 
vides that ' the enumeration in the Constitution 
of certain rights shall not be construed to deny 
or disparage others retained by the people.' 
The powers not delegated to the United States 
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or 
to the people.' This Constitution provides for 
the admission of new States. Under its provi- 
sions the Congress of the United States, on the 
2d day of March, 1819, authorized the people 
of Alabama Territory ' to form for themselves 
a Constitution and State Government, and when 
formed into a State, shall be admitted into the 
Union upon the same footing with the original 
States, in all respects whatsoever. ' In accord- 
ance with this Act of Congress, the people of 
Alabama, through their delegates in convention 
assembled, made their State Constitution and 
State Government, and ended their work on the 
2d of August, 1 819. On this day — the 2d day 
of August, 1819 — our forefathers in Alabama, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



45 



through their delegates in Congress assembled, 
declared, as a part of their fundamental and 
organic law, that ' all political power is in- 
herent in the people, and all free governments 
are founded on their authority and instituted for 
their benefit, and therefore they have, at all 
times, an inalienable and indefeasible right to 
alter, reform, or abolish their form of govern- 
ment in such manner as they may think expe- 
dient.' With this declaration contained in the 
Constitution of Alabama, the Congress of the 
United States, on the 14th day of December, 
1819, declared the State of Alabama to be one 
of the United States of America, admitting her 
by express terms into the Union ' on an equal 
footing with the original States, in all respects 
whatsoever.' Whatever right Virginia or any 
other State of the original thirteen possessed, 
Alabama possessed. Virginia, in the ordinance 
ratifying and adopting the Constitution of the 
United States, expressly reserved her right to 
withdraw the powers delegated, whenever, in 
her judgment, the safety and happiness of her 
people demanded it. When the people of Ala- 
bama, through their delegates in convention 
assembled, on the nth of January, 1861, de- 
clared their withdrawal from the United States, 
they were only exercising a right ■ which the 
Declaration of Independence declared belonged 
to every free people — a right not denied or pro- 
hibited in the Constitution of the United States; 
a right exercised by every State when the Con- 
stitution of 1787 was formed and adopted — an 
inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, re- 
form or abolish their form of government, which 
Alabama's bill of rights declared might be done 
'at all times — a right vital to freemen — 
dangerous only to tyrants. The sovereign peo- 
ple of Alabama, through their delegates in con- 
vention assembled, in 1861, only repealed an 
ordinance which the same sovereign people, 
through their delegates in convention assembled, 
ordained in 1819. The simple ordinance of 
secession declared the Constitution of the United 
States no longer binding on the people of Ala- 
bama ; and that they were free to form and 
adopt a new Constitution to govern them in 



their relations to other States, and with foreign 
powers. The State Government — the people 
of Alabama, remained the same, their relations 
to other States alone were changed. In accord- 
ance with the dictates of her judgment, Ala- 
bama and other States, now known as the Con- 
federate States of America, formed a new 
Constitution and a new Government, based on 
the principles of the old one, amending the 
Constitution so as to leave no room for doubt- 
fjl construction on disputed points. Because 
of the exercise of this right — a right lying at the 
foundation of all free government and the cor- 
ner-stone of every republican system of govern- 
ment, the Northern States, now calling them- 
selves the United States, made war on the 
Confederate States. 

"The authorities of these Northern States, by 
their declarations and their conduct, thus deny 
the right of free government — deny that all 
governments derive their powers from the con- 
sent of the governed — deny the doctrines of the 
Declaration of Independence and the principles 
of the fathers of the Republic, and assert and at- 
tempt to exercise the doctrines of force. They 
deny to the people of Alabama the right of self- 
government, and declare the monstrous pharisaic 
dogma, that they have a right to coerce us to be 
subservient to their will ! that they are our supe- 
riors, our masters, and we their inferiors, their 
slaves ! Freemen of Alabama ! If you had sub- 
mitted to such monstrous pretensions, you would 
have been unworthy the heritage of freedom 
your patriot fathers left you ! You would have 
been unworthy the sires from whence you sprung ! 
You would have been unworthy the name of free- 
men ! You would have been cowards, slaves in- 
deed, fit for Yankee masters ! When the Con- 
stitution of 1787 was adopted, the Northern 
States had little more of population than the. 
Southern States. Even under the census of 1 790 
the political power of the North, as reflected in 
the House of Representatives of Congress, only 
exceeded that of the South by five majority. 
The North was cold in climate, with compara- 
tively rugged and barren soil. The South was 
blessed with a mild and generous and healthful 



4 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



climate, and with a soil of unsurpassed fertility. 
The South had more commerce, more wealth, 
and all the prospects as far as natural advantages 
indicated of a far more rapidly increasing popu- 
lation. Yet in the progress of our history, 
through means of various acts of congressional 
legislation (unnecessary here to mention), large 
portions of Southern territory were devoted to 
Northern aggrandizement; the population of the 
North was greatly augmented beyond the natural 
increase; the bulk of the commerce and capital 
of the country was concentrated there. The 
rich South was despoiled of her wealth and com- 
merce, and had become for years little more than 
a tributary to the swelling magnitude of Northern 
commerce and power. In proportion to the in- 
creased commerce, augmented population and 
concentrated capital, the political power of the 
North was increased. So that, under the census 
of 1850 — little more than half a century after the 
adoption of the Constitu f ion of 1 787 — the politi- 
cal power of the North as reflected in the House 
of Representatives had increased from five to 
fifty-five majority. With this increasing politi- 
cal power came constant turmoil and aggressions 
on the rights of the South. The most solemn 
constitutional guarantees were trifled with or 
wantonly disregarded by the States and people 
of the North. 

"Almost from the foundation of the Govern- 
ment under the Constitution of 17S7, the North 
and the South differed — widely differed — as to 
the character of the government and the con- 
struction of the Constitution. The North always 
contended for a latitudinous, the South for a 
strict construction of the Constitution. There 
was manifested in the North a constant and per- 
sistent tendency to regard the people of the 
United States as out nation. The South more 
truly maintained that in no sense could the 
United States be considered as one nation except 
in the relation they bore to other governments 
and nations ; that the true character of the gov- 
ernment was that of a Federal Republic, having 
for its basis a confederation of sepr.rate and sov- 
ereign States. The whole framework of the 
Constitution and the history of its adoption 



proved the Southern view to have been the cor- 
rect one. Instead of being a Government con- 
trolled by a mere numerical majority, as con- 
tended by the statesmen of the North, it was 
intended by its framers to be con-trolled and 
governed by concurrent majorities of States and 
the people of the States as represented in the 
House of Representatives. The States, in their 
separate sovereign character, adopted the Consti- 
tution. It was binding on none until accepted 
by the free consent and ratification of its people. 
No act could ever become a law by the simple 
majority of the people as represented by the 
House of Representatives. The Senators, the 
Representatives of the States — the larger and 
smaller being equal in power — must first concur. 
And yet still, the President, who when elected 
by electors was the double representative of 
the States, and the people of the States, and when 
elected by Congress, the representative of the 
States, must give his sanction before any measure 
could become a law, unless passed by a constitu- 
tional majority over his negative. So long as 
the South had equality with the North in the 
Senate, the South had some guarantee that her 
rights would be protected. But when the pro- 
gress of events destroyed this equality, the rights 
of the South, as recent events clearly prove, 
were no longer safe in the Union. When the 
North obtained a majority of the States, and a 
majority of the people of the States, the greed of 
sectional dominion with insane furore seized the 
public mind, and not heeding even the warnings 
of her own patriotic sons, disregarding the pro- 
tests of the minority South, the North undertook- 
to select the President and Vice-President from 
her own borders, and by purely a sectional ma- 
jority, to install the wildest fanaticism in a chair 
once honored by Washington. So that, in truth 
and in fact, whatever may have been the theor*", 
the North having a majority of States, a majority 
of the people — majority in Senate and House of 
Representatives — and a President and Vice- 
President selected from the North by a purely 
sectional vote, thus ignoring the South in the 
administration of Federal affairs, the government 
became practically one, governed by the will of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



47 



a mere numerical majority. In all ages such a 
government has been a despotism ! For years 
the South watched with intense interest the rapid 
progress of events ; the increasing fanaticism of 
the North, threatening destruction to the land- 
marks of the Constitution of our forefathers, and 
endangering the great interests and liberties of 
the South. In various ways and at repeated 
times, the Southern people evinced their appre- 
hensions for their future peace and happiness. 
The two great parties in the slaveholding States 
each adopted resolutions as portions of the party 
creed, denouncing the election by the North of 
a Black Republican President on a platform 
avowing the destructive dogmas of that party, 
and they declared their firm purpose in the event 
of such election to sever every tie which bound 
them to the Union. 

" In Alabama this was done as early as 1856. 
In 1859-60 the Legislature of Alabama, by a 
vote unanimous, save two dissenting voices, 
passed resolutions authorizing and requiring the 
Governor of the State, in such event, to call a 
convention of the people of the State ' to con- 
"sider, determine, »and do whatever, in the opin- 
ion of such convention, the rights, interests and 
honor of the State of Alabama require to be 
done for their protection." The people of the 
South made all honorable efforts to avoid the 
necessity which such an event would produce. 
By conventions and legislatures solemn warning 
was given to the people of the North of the fixed 
determination of the South on this subject. But 
the North, disregarding the time-honored princi- 
ples of the fathers of the Republic, turning a 
deaf ear to the voice of Southern patriotism, for- 
getful of the ties which bind freemen to princi- 
ple, ignoring the hallowed associations of our 
Revolutionary history, mad with fanaticism and 
filled with the boastful pride of numerical 
strength, rushed headlong in the wild career of 
sectional domination- When the Convention 
of Alabama met on the 7th day of January, 1861, 
the members were united in heart. The unani- 
mous declaration on the first day of the Conven- 
tion ' that the people of Alabama will not submit 
to be parties to the inauguration and administra- 



tion of Abraham Lincoln as President, and Han- 
nibal Hamlin as Vice-President of the United 
States of America,' demonstrated a fixed and 
united purpose. The co-operationists and sepa- 
rate secessionists were equally intent for resistance, 
equally honest, equally patriotic, and they only 
differed intellectually as to the best and safest 
mode of making that resistance effectual and 
permanent. And when the first tocsin of war 
was sounded, co-operationists and secessionists 
marched shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, 
hand in hand, to the arbitrament of battle. 
From the Gulf to our northern border; from 
the mountains, valleys and plains ; from the 
east and from the west, the stalwart sons of Ala- 
bama rushed to the standard of the new-born 
Republic. And with dauntless bravery and hero- 
ism, they have crimsoned with their blood every 
battle-field from Manassas to Chickamauga. An 
imperishable monument of glorious renown has 
been erected for the State ! The name 'Alaba- 
mian ' has become immortal in history ! 

"In the commencement of the war, Lincoln 
and his followers declared their purpose as sim- 
ply to repossess the forts and arsenals, the public 
property ; and to suppress the rebellion. It was 
supposed by the North that the large mass of the 
people in the South were willing to submit to 
Black Republican rule — and that it only needed 
an opportunity to rally around the flag which 
was once the proud ensign of a united people. 
These flattering anticipations were soon dissi- 
pated. Seventy-five thousand men were deemed 
by them quite sufficient to crush in ninety days 
the power of the Confederate States. The flying 
hosts of Lincoln at Bethel and Manassas showed 
the prowess of Southern arms and the folly of 
Northern calculations. The banner, once loved 
and honored by Southern people, became the 
object of loathing and disgust, and the hated 
emblem of oppression and tyranny. Then three 
hundred thousand additional men were called 
for by Lincoln ; and the South, by the power of 
numbers, was to be coerced into further affiliation 
with the North ! The Confederate States were 
to be forcedba.dk into a Union whose first prin- 
ciple was free consent. It was vainly imagined 



4 8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



by the wise men of the -North that the eighteen 
millions of Northern whites could and would 
very soon crush to powder the eight millions of 
Southern white people; especially as in their 
vain imaginings they supposed the four millions 
of blacks were here amongst us ready to burst 
the bonds which bound them to us. But these 
men, wise in their own conceit, forgot that 
' the battle is not always to the strong, nor the 
race to the swift.' They forgot that there was 
a God of justice, the Ruler of men and nations. 
" In numerical strength, and in all the appli- 
ances of war, the North certainly had greatly 
the advantage of us. The North had the regular 
army, the navy, the commercial marine, manu- 
factories of arms, and of all the munitions of 
war. The South had no regular army, no navy, 
no commercial marine, no manufactories of 
arms or powder ! Very soon all our ports were 
blockaded, and, being thus cut off from the out- 
side world, we were left to our own resources, 
our own strong arms and stout hearts. By the 
blessing of God, these have availed us thus far to 
maintain our cause. We have, as it were, im- 
provised armies, arms, and munitions, of which 
Napoleon, in his palmiest days, might have been 
justly proud. Aye, more ! by the energy and 
wisdom displayed, by the brilliant achievements 
of our arms on a hundred fields, by the Christian 
magnanimity we have shown to our enemies, we, 
but yesterday unknown, to-day have drawn from 
reluctant lips not only praise, but the admira- 
tion of all enlightened nations. The series of 
brilliant triumphs, achieved over the North in 
1862, caused the President of the North to an- 
nounce a different policy. With all the efforts 
of the people of the North, aided by every for- 
eigner who could be bought with money or 
seduced by promises of booty, with the ports of 
every nation open to his commerce and his 
necessities, Lincoln was forced to admit that 
the eighteen millions of Northern whites could 
not coerce the South back into the Union. A 
new discovery in Black Republican philosophy 
was made. It was proved by numerous experi- 
ments in the great crucible of practice that the 
slave jiopulation, instead of being a grand vol- 



cano, threatening destruction and death to the 
cause of Southern Independence, was a great 
element of Southern power. Lincoln, without 
the authority of his Congress or Constitution, 
in the fall of 1862, proclaimed his intention to 
declare free every slave of the South, unless, by 
the 1st of January, 1863, we should lay down 
our arms, and, with crossed hands, repentantly 
submit to his dominion". The South scorned 
alike his threats and his promises ! His threat- 
ened proclamation in due time made its appear- 
ance. It was as impotent as it was unconstitu- 
tional. It was mere brtctum fulmcn so far as it 
affects the institution of slavery. But i'. deserves 
to be considered by our people as showing the 
temper of the Northern mind. In the first 
place, it is a humiliating confession of Yankee 
weakness. It is a confession that the eighteen 
millions of Northern whites, strengthened by all 
the foreign aid they could get, were unable to 
coerce the Southern States back into the Union. 
In the next place, it shows an utter disregard cf 
Constitutional -obligations, a palpable violation 
of that Constitution once revered by our fathers 
and by us. In the third place, it shows an utter* 
disregard of the principles of international law 
settled for ages, by publicists, and recognized 
as binding by Kent, Wheaton, Gardner, and 
Adams ! It is, in the fourth place, a deliberate 
attempt to excite our slaves to insurrection ; it is 
an invitation, yea, an urgent solicitation, to an 
ignorant race, recognized as our property by the 
Constitution Lincoln has sworn to support, to 
commit murder, rapine, rape, arson, and all 
manner of diabolical deeds. An invitation to 
have our homes and our firesides deluged with 
the blood of our wives and our children. It is 
the expression of fiendish wish to see a whole 
country deluged in innocent blood, and to hear 
the mingled lamentations of a whole people, and 
to see the 'blackness of darkness,' like a funeral 
pall, overspread forever the glories of our sunny 
land ! This proclamation was the first authori- 
tative announcement that this war was no longer 
waged for a restoration of the Union. Recon- 
struction of the Union is no longer desirable, 
no longer practical, even with Lincoln ! It has 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



49 



been recently announced by Lincoln's Solicitor 
of the Treasury — it is proclaimed by his gen- 
erals in the field — that the purpose of the North 
now is, to subjugate the freemen of the South, 
to confiscate all their property and deprive them 
of all that freemen hold dear ! State lines and 
all State rights are to be abolished. The right 
to have Legislatures, Governors, Judges of our 
own choosing, juries from amongst us, the right 
to vote, even, every civil and political right is 
to be denied to the subjugated South ! Some 
Butler, or some black satrap of Lincoln's crea- 
tion, would, in such an event, be the Governor 
of Alabama, with a standing army of blacks to 
ravage our country, outrage our women, and 
hold freemen in bondage ! As if God had 
given such a people over to the reprobation of 
the devil, during the progress of this war, the 
people of the North seem to have lost every 
principle of morals, law, and religion which 
adorn a civilized people ! In attempting to 
deprive us of our liberties, they have lost their 
own ! Every principle of constitutional liberty 
amongst them has been destroyed. The writ 
of habeas corpus, the great writ of liberty, wrung 
from tyrant hands ages ago by our British ances- 
tors, has been suspended by the simple will of 
Lincoln. The freedom of the press — of speech, 
the right of petition, trial by jury, have all been 
trampled under foot. The monstrous dogma 
has been proclaimed in high places that in time 
of war, the Constitution, its guarantees and 
prohibitions, are all suspended, and that all 
power to do or not to do, is concentrated by 
political necessity in the unrestrained hands of a 
single man. 

"On their part, in the conduct of the war, 
every principle of civilized usage has been set at 
naught ; obligations and stipulations, always 
heretofore held sacred even by savage nations, 
have been violated when convenience and 
present policy interfered with their fulfilment. 
In such portions of our country as the fortunes 
of war have enabled them to possess, private 
property, heretofore respected by the usage of 
all modern nations, has either been dishonestly 
appropriated or wantonly destroyed. Works of 
4 



art and ornament, the proudest achievements of 
genius, the keepsakes and mementos of de- 
parted friends, have been filched from the places 
they graced, and carried North to beautify some 
Yankee general's parlor, made luxuriant by the 
spoils from Southern households. The graves 
of our honored dead, the houses where Chri:- 
tians worship God, have been basely desecrated 
(despoiled of the emblems which love had con- 
secrated to honor), polluted and destroyed by 
these Northern Goths and Vandals ! It almost 
seems that such a people have always been 
strangers to us ! Is it possible that we could 
ever again dwell in political Union with such a 
people ? It is almost an insult to ask a Southern 
man such a question. By the graves of our 
fallen sons, around our desolated altars, in view 
of our devastated fields and blazing homes and 
cities, in view of our banners, red all over with 
Southern blood, let us renew our faith to the 
Southern cause, and let us swear before high 
heaven, whatever else may be our fate, we will 
never have political connection with such a God- 
cursed race ! Whatever may have been the 
differences of opinion amongst our people as to 
the propriety of dissolving the Union in 1861, 
there cannot now be any difference as to our 
duties to our State and country. Our property, 
our homes, our wives and our children, our lives, 
our liberties and our honor — everything we hold 
dear on earth — are dependent upon the triumph 
of the Southern arms. Should we be conquered, 
everything worth living for will be gone. Our 
political salvation how depends on our own re- 
sources, our own energies, bravery and fortitude. 
With the continued favor of Providence, and 
with hearty co-operation amongst ourselves, we 
shall be equal to the task before us. Every 
motive which can urge a freeman to noble deeds 
and lofty daring prompts to action now. Death 
will be a heavenly boon compared to the 
miseries of Yankee rule. If the proud Roman 
could sing, in the acme of Roman power, duke 
est pro patria mori — 'tis sweet for one's country 
to die — can we not prove by our actions, 'tis 
glorious to die for our native land ? If our 
people will only be true to themselves, true to 



5° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



their homes and their firesides, and true to their 
God, our liberties are safe and our triumph is 
sure. In the beginning of the war we had only 
undisciplined citizen soldiers, few guns, no 
heavy artillery, little powder and other muni- 
tions or appliances for warlike defence. After 
near three years of war we have larger armies to- 
day than we have ever had; we have more arms, 
munitions and equipments of war than we have 
ever had. We have manufactories of arms and 
powder sufficient to arm our whole people. We 
have a growing navy. Already the few cruisers 
we have put afloat have driven the bulk of Yan- 
kee commerce from the ocean, or compelled 
their vessels to seek shelter under the flags of 
foreign nations. We have fought more battles 
than Alexander, Caesar or Napoleon ever fought. 
In nearly all we have been the victors. In not 
one, where there has been anything like equality 
in numbers, have we ever failed to triumph over 
the foe. In all the great battles we have been 
greatly inferior in numbers to our enemy. To- 
day we are more nearly equal to our enemy in 
numbers than we have ever been. If all our 
men now enrolled were at their posts of duty 
our armies in the field would quite equal those 
of the enemy. It is true we have met with some 
serious reverses. But in the Providence of God 
our reverses have availed the enemy little advan- 
tage. Our reverses and sufferings have never 
half equalled those of our fathers of 1776, and 
yet they, three millions in number, triumphed 
over all the power of Great Britain,. The ' Old 
Dominion,' whose sod has been truly 'the dark 
and bloody ground ' of this war, stands yet erect 
and proudly boasts sic semper tyrannis. Mc- 
Dowell, McClellan, Fope, Burnside, Hooker, 
Meade, each with an army the 'best the. world 
ever saw,' with boastful pride and banners 
gleaming, has essayed to find a road to Rich- 
mond. Each has been signally foiled in all 
attempts on the capital of Virginia and of the 
Confederacy, by the Beauregards, Johnstons, 
Lees, Jacksons ami Longstreets of the South. 
"While Virginia stands as an adamantine wall 
against the onward march of Lincoln's columns, 
never let the voice of despondency be uttered 



from our lips or find a lodgment in our hearts. 
Charleston, after one hundred and forty days' 
bombardment, from navy and land batteries 
combined, controlled and directed by all the 
science of Yankee ingenuity, still stands with 
her colors proudly and defiantly floating. The 
names of Sumter and Moultrie have had the 
glories of 1S63 added to the renowned memories 
of Revolutionary times. Whilst Alabama mourns 
thousands of her noblest men, her Jones's, Mar- 
tin, Lomax, Moore, Hale, Baine, Woodward, 
Pegnes, Pelham, Tracey, Garrott, Webb, Desh- 
ler, and other fallen braves, have erected along 
the mountain-cliffs of fame the beacon-lights by 
which in all time her sons of freedom may dis- 
cern the path to honor and renown. Had I the 
time and you the patience, it would delight me 
to refer to many incidents of battle in which 
Alabama's sons have gained a 'deathless name; ' 
nor yet would I stop with recounting the deeds 
of Alabama's sons ! Her daughters are the dia- 
monds which sparkle in her coronet of glory ! 
Woman's voice-whispered courage when the first 
blow for freedom was struck ! Woman's hands 
made the clothes the soldier wears ! Woman 
made the banners under which the soldiers rush 
to the charge ! Woman's smiles encourage the 
timid, her frowns send back the skulker to duty ! 
and her fortitude gives new strength and assur- 
ance to the despondent. Go to the fireside, and 
there is heard the mother's prayer for her hus- 
band, son and country. Go to the houses made 
desolate by the horrors of war, and there is 
heard the sympathetic sigh of woman ! Go to 
the hospitals where our sons and brothers, 
with mangled limbs and bleeding hearts, in con- 
fusion lie, and there woman binds up the broken 
limbs and soothes the bleeding hearts. Go to 
the couch of the dying soldier-boy, far from 
home and friends, and there woman's hands 
wipe the death-damp from his noble brow, and 
her tears soften the sod over his humble grave. 
Woman has been and is the inspiring angel, 
whose influence nerves the arm and swells the 
heart of the soldier in the camp, on the march, 
on the battle-field in the death-struggle for 
liberty. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5 1 



" Woman has recorded her name on the bright- 
est page in our annals of freedom. But, gentle- 
men, we have grave duties yet to perform before 
our independence is safe. Large numbers of our 
soldiers have gone from home, carrying their 
lives in jtheir hands, to fight our battles, and 
have left their wives and little ones without 
means of subsistence. There are many women 
and children made widows and orphans by this 
war equally comfortless, equally unprovided for. 
Now what is our duty to these ? It is obviously 
to feed, to clothe, to comfort, to protect, to care 
for those, the loved ones of our brave soldiers, 
thus become the children of the Republic. 
Whilst all the people of Alabama have their 
lives and their liberties staked on the result of 
this war, and large numbers have property to be 
saved and protected, many of our soldiers nor; 
in the field have nothing but their lives, their 
wives and children, and their liberties. Those 
of our people who have property to be saved and 
protected are under a double obligation to feed, 
clothe and protect the wives and children of the 
brave men who form, with their bodies, breast- 
works against Yankee invasion and outrage. 
The people of south and middle Alabama, the 
seat of wealth and plenty, cannot discharge their 
whole duty unless they, out of their abundance, 
provide for the families left destitute in other 
portions of the State. Let the soldier know, 
whilst he is gone, that his loved ones at home 
are cared for, and this very knowledge gives re- 
newed strength to his arm, fills his heart anew 
with the fires of patriotism. 

" I trust that liberal and just hearts need on 
this subject but a suggestion. But, gentlemen 
legislators, you will not discharge your duty 
unless you provide for the wants of these wives 
and children. Tax heavily, if need be ; tax 
liberally the property of the citizens of the 
State, so that their wants may surely be supplied, 
and thus show to the brave defenders of our soil 
that their services are appreciated by grateful 
hearts at home. - Let us in private and in public 
stations come up to the full measure of our duty. 
We have fallen short of our duty. I fear, I 
know we have been too much absorbed with a 



greedy lust for money-making. The glittering 
treasures which filthy lucre hoards, have been 
gathered, too often, from the tears and sighs of 
widows and orphans, wives and children of sol- 
diers, who, amidst the thunders of battle, have 
poured out their life-blood. God will never 
prosper riches so acquired, nor favor any people 
so forgetful of the duties of humanity and true 
patriotism. Our Confederate currency must be 
upheld. Every dollar's worth of property in 
the Confederate States is pledged for its redemp- 
tion. It can only become worthless by our sub- 
jugation, by our failure to achieve our indepen- 
dence. If we are ever conquered, we shall con- 
quer ourselves by failure to discharge our duty. 
If we fail, then nothing we can call our own 
will be worth a dollar to us. It is the currency 
which our soldiers receive for their services. 
If it is good enough for them, it is surely good 
enough for any property we have. Let it be 
sustained at all hazards. The credit of the Con- 
federate States is the life-blood of Southern 
liberty. The Legislature of Alabama and of the 
several States ought to aid in sustaining the 
credit of Confederate promises. Our Senators 
and Representatives in Congress ought to feel 
and know that a people who have shown no un- 
willingness to give up their children as sacrifices 
on the altars of Southern freedom, are ready to 
devote their property to the establishment of 
their independence. We should cultivate a bet- 
ter spirit of harmony amongst ourselves. We 
are all engaged in a common cause. Whatever 
is the interest of any good man is the interest 
of the whole State. One fate awaits us all. We 
must resolve to die in one common grave or live 
in the enjoyment of a common liberty. The fires 
of past party must be extinguished. The bap- 
tism of blood through which our people have 
passed in defence of a common cause and coun- 
try, ought to have washed out all the defilements 
of prejudice, renewed in us right spirits, and 
fitted us for a nobler career of future prosperity 
and happiness. Let us learn to regard every 
man who sustains our cause with his blood or 
treasure as a friend and brother, whatever may 
have been his former opinions. And let us 



52 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



henceforth, and until this contest ends in our 
complete independence, have but one par y — :nd 
let that be, heart and soul, for the Southern 
cause ! Let us give our noble President, and 
those associated with him in power, a generous 
confidence and support. That he has committed 
errors is simply to say that he is a man ! No 
man, in his trying position, could have shown 
more energy, more ability, more patriotic fervor, 
more regard for the rights of the people and of 
the States. But whilst I advise a generous con- 
fidence in our public authorities, I would not 
have the people forget that ' Vigilance is the 
price and preserver of liberty.' 

" In times of war, the tendency of authority, 
civil and military, is to assume unwarranted 
power, under the plausible plea of public neces- 
sity. Let us never forget that our Constitution 
was made for war and peace, and that we have 
for its construction but one set of rules which 
shall govern in war as well as in peace. And let 
the cardinal rule be, strict construction. Let us 
not overlook the fact that the military power, by 
the Constitution, is to be always subordinate to 
the civil authority, and let us take care that our 
rights and liberties at home shall not be sacri- 
ficed whilst resisting the oppression and tyranny 
of the North. Whilst Alabama has not shown 
any disposition to shrink from the performance 
of her full duty to the Confederate States, still 
she has not promptly responded to the last call 
made on her by the President. I know the rea- 
son why this delay has occurred. Let there be 
no cause for further delay. Our State has been 
invaded, and every day the enemy's footsteps 
pollute our soil adds insult to injury, and ought 
to arouse higher and higher the just indignation 
and the energies of our people. Let us arouse 
our people in every county of the State, and let 
it not be said that Alabamians can sleep quietly 
at home whilst any of our citizens have been 
brutally murdered, driven from their firesides, 
their property pillaged, or ruthlessly, maliciously 
and wantonly destroyed. If we will promptly 
organize under the act of Congress for local de- 
fence, or under the militia laws of the State, 
thousands of troops now engaged in catching 



skulkers and deserters, can be sent to the armies 
to which they belong, and the people who have 
been harassed and their substance eaten by men 
paying little regard to persons or property, will 
be free from annoyance. The skulkers and 
deserters can and will be sent to their duty by 
good men organized at home. The excesses 
and outrages committed by irresponsible bodies 
of men in some portions of our State is a sore 
and crying evil, and they must be stopped. 
The manner in which the impressment law of 
Congress has been executed in many portions of 
our State needs your serious attention. Gross 
wrong, and I had almost said wanton injuries, 
have been perpetrated by officers who have no 
common sense, and no regard for the proprieties 
of life or the rights of property. If our laws do 
not furnish ample remedy for such outrages, pro- 
vide the remedy. In discharging the duties of 
the office I am about to assume, I shall endeavor 
to see that the rights of our citizens are pro- 
tected from violence at home as well as against the 
raids and ravages of our enemy. I shall expect, 
as I have a right to demand, the hearty co-oper- 
ation of all in the support of every measure cal- 
culated to promote the prosperity and happiness 
of the people of Alabama and the cause of South- 
ern independence. Let us never forget that the 
Almighty rules over the affairs of men, and that 
people and governments are His handiwork ! 
That His favor may be continued towards us as 
it has been in the past, let us constantly implore 
His mercy by submitting ourselves in all things 
to His will. Let us humble ourselves in His 
sight, and show by our acts that we deserve His 
protecting care ! " 

This address created great attention, and was 
so clear and conclusive a defence of the right of 
the Southern States to secede from the Federal 
Union, that it was printed by request, and a 
number of copies were sent to Europe as an able 
statement of the question from the Southern, 
stand-point. Governor Watts discharged the 
responsible and onerous duties of Governor of 
Alabama during the last year and a-half of the 
war, the most momentous and trying period 
through which Alabama has yet passed. The 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



S3 



Federal army occupied the capital of the State, 
April 12th, 1865, and Governor Watts' term of 
office practically ceased at that date. His plan- 
tation was raided by the Federal troops, and 
2 to bales of cotton and 3,000 bushels of corn 
destroyed which was about to be distributed 
among the poor of Butler county, in addition to 
the loss of a quantity of bacon and forty head of 
mules. In the fall of 18. 8, Governor Watts 
took an active part in the Presidential campaign 
in support of Seymour and Blair, and, while 
addressing the citizens of Elmore, Autauga and 
Coosa at Wetumpka on the 22d of August, dis- 
cussed the question as to whether the people of 
Alabama could vote at the forthcoming Presiden- 
tial election. The carpet-bag Legislature had 
adjourned, after failing in the attempt to pass, 
over the Governor's veto, an Electoral Bill vest- 
ing the choice of the Presidential electors in the 
Legislature ; and declining to enact a Registra- 
tion Law, with the design to deprive the people 
of Alabama of their electoral representation in 
the choice-of a President. Governor Watts held 
that a perfectly legal election could be held 
under the laws as contained in the Revised Code, 
in the absence of a registration law, and that 
" all who were not disqualified could vote with- 
out registering, and without taking the oath." 
He was of opinion, however, that the prescribed 
oath could be taken by the people of the South 
with a clear conscience, and that, under the cir- 
cumstances, it was their duty to do so, in order 
to carry the State for Seymour and Blair, and 
thus re-establish the great and fundamental rights 
embodied in American Liberty. He said: "One 
great and controlling reason why we should 
vote for Seymour and Blair is, that they stand 
squarely on the platform of principles adopted 
unanimously by a convention composed of dele- 
gates from every State and congressional district 
in the Union. The platform plants itself as on 
a rock, on the Constitution — the written Consti- 
tution established by our fathers. It guarantees 
the equal rights of all the States — not a star is 
blotted out nor its effulgence dimmed by the 
carnage and strife of war ; a strict construction 
of that Constitution is demanded as essential to 



the enjoyment of republican liberty — as an 
essential barrier against usurpation and consoli- 
dation of all powers of government in the hands 
of some military despot. Economy in the ad- 
ministration of all departments of the govern- 
ment ; the maintenance of the three great 
departments, executive, legislative and judicial, 
in the exercise of their appropriate constitu- 
tional powers, with no infringement upon the 
rights of either by the others, or by either of 
them, is also a cardinal principle of the plat- 
form. The payment of the public debt ; the 
reduction of taxes, so that labor may be pro- 
tected and properly rewarded. The restoration 
of the Southern States to the enjoyment of the 
rights which belong to them — the freedom of 
speech, freedom of the press, the restoration of 
habeas corpus in times of peace and war. The 
restoration of real peace to our whole country, 
so that once more our broad land may blossom 
as the rose, and with abundance and prosperity 
bless a united and happy people. The Consti- 
tution which has been buried in the grave of 
radicalism shall burst the cerements of the tomb 
and be resurrected into newness of life — so that 
it may again become, as it was in the past, our 
pillar of fire in the night of our adversity, and 
our pillar of cloud in the day of our prosperity. 
All these are doctrines of the platform." Speak- 
ing of Horatio Seymour, he said: "He vividly 
recalls to our minds by his noble qualities of 
head and heart, the statesmen — the grand old 
statesmen — who, in the earlier and better days 
of our history, illustrated by their deeds and 
their words the glory of our independence and 
the grandeur of constitutional liberty. With an 
intellect broad, deep and towering, he stands 
to-day the peer of the wisest and best our 
country has ever produced. In private, beloved 
and honored for the purity and goodness of an 
unstained life, and in public always the fearless 
upholder of what he believed to be the truth. 
He is no timeserver; no political trickster ; no 
demagogue, to lure by his words and destroy by 
his acts ; but the great statesman and patriot — 
the lover of the whole country. In the depth 
of his practical knowledge, in the eloquence of 



54 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



his words, in the elevation of his public life, he 
reminds me of him who said, ' he would rather be 
right than be President.' In his strict adherence 
to principles, in times of peril and prosperity ; 
in his pursuit of good, with an eye single to 
truth; in the terseness of his logic, and his far- 
seeing statesmanship, he reminds me of the great 
statesman who for so many years was the idol of 
South Carolina, and the admiration of the 
South. In his broad love of country ; in his 
deep knowledge of the Constitution, and in the 
grandeur of his noble mind, he recalls to me 
the godlike Webster." 

In June, 1S72, the case of the United States 
vs. Smith, Pylant and Bozeman — one of those 
known as the Ku-Klux — was tried in Mont- 
gomery, Governor Watts appearing as one of the 
counsel for the defendants. The case was tried 
before Judge Busteed, of New York, one of those 
notorious partisan United States Judges that 
disgraced the Bench in that dark period in the 
history of the South, when law and justice were 
trampled under foot to subserve the purposes of 
sectional hate. He conducted the trial in the 
most arbitrary manner, assuming the functions 
of prosecutor as well as judge. The counsel for 
the prisoners were treated with the greatest 
indignity, and his conduct was so outrageous, 
rivalling that of the notorious Judge Jeffreys in 
the time of Charles II., of England, that the 
sympathy of the jury was excited in favor of the 
prisoners. Governor Watts conducted the de- 
fence with admirable patience and self-restraint 
in face of the arrogant browbeating of the 
Court, and concluded his address to the jury as 
follows: " You were told by the United States 
District Attorney for the Southern District of 
Alabama, Mr. Southworth, that you should per- 
mit the prejudice — the indignation which arises 
in every good man's breast towards the perpe- 
trators of these horrid crimes — -these combined 
crimes of midnight arson and midnight assassi- 
nation — to influence your verdict of guilt or 
innocence in this case. Not content with a 
verdict such as the evidence may produce in the 
minds of reasonable and just men, he would 
have you make victims of even innocent men in 



order to appease his holy horror for such crimes, 
and to vindicate the violated majesty of the law. 
This appeal to your passions, rather than to 
your reason, is a confession that the evidence 
alone is not sufficient to convict these defendants. 
If so, why should such an argument be addressed 
to you? Such a sentiment is not fit to be 
uttered by the representative of a Government 
whose foundations were cemented with the 
blood of our revolutionary sires, and whose soil 
is hailed everywhere as 'The land of the free, 
and the home of the brave.' Such a sentiment 
— that the innocent may be convicted, in order 
to strike terror into the hearts of the wicked 
— ought to find no abiding place in a Christian 
land, illumined by the civilization of the nine- 
teenth century. A Nero in heathen Rome once 
practised such a sentiment, and he has received 
as the just reward of his wickedness the com- 
bined execrations of mankind. And King 
Herod, when the Star of Bethlehem first cast 
his infant rays on a benighted world, being 
mocked by the wise men, became exceeding 
wroth, ' sent forth and slew in Bethlehem and 
the coasts thereof, all children of the age of two 
years and under,' that he might be sure to 
destroy the 'King of the Jews' — Christ, the 
Saviour of mankind. And we are told in the 
Bible that ' Then was fulfilled that which was 
spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying : In 
Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and 
weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping 
for her children and would not be comforted 
because they were not.' If innocent men are 
now to be convicted for the sake of the guilty, 
here in our land will be heard a voice, lamenta- 
tion and weeping and great mourning — Alabama 
mourning for her children and will not be com- 
forted, because they are not. 

"But I thank God we live in a Christian 
land ! I thank God we live in a land where 
justice and mercy go hand in hand ! I thank 
God we live in a land where the liberty of the 
citizens and the lives of the innocent are shielded 
against the unholy purposes of wicked rulers, 
against the tyranny of men in. high places, by 
the blood-bought sacred right of trial by jury— 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



55 



that great bulwark of liberty against the oppres- 
sion of despotism. Gentlemen, the oath you 
have taken demands that these prisoners shall 
be tried 'by the evidence, and by the evidence 
alone ! Not by the opinions of Mr. Minnis, 
not by the opinions of Mr. Southworth, not by 
the opinions of Judge Lewis, not by the opin- 
ions of the counsel of the prisoners, nor yet by 
the opinions of the Judge on the Bench. What 
the testimony proves, what weight it shall have, 
what credit you will give to each witness and to 
each fact and circumstance, what shall be your 
verdict on this evidence is left wisely and exclu- 
sively to your own judgments and consciences 
in the sight of men and God ! The oath you 
have taken that you will well and truly try the 
prisoners at the bar, and true deliverance make, 
and a true verdict render, accordhig to the evi- 
dence, has not only been registered in this tem- 
ple of justice, but it has been registered in the 
high Chancery of Heaven, and there it stands 
recorded until time shall be no more ! You will 
not be, therefore, swerved from duty by fear, 
favor, affection, reward, or the hope thereof; 
neither by the blackness of the crimes charged 
against these defendants, nor by the blandish- 
ments of power, nor by anything save justice 
and truth ! Again, you were told by Mr. South- 
worth, that, 'according as this case is decided, 
you decide the weal or woe of Alabama. ' What 
means this language coming from the mouth- 
piece of the Government of the United States? 
Does it mean that you are to convict these de- 
fendants, whether guilty or innocent, to serve 
the purpose of the Government ? Does it mean 
that if, in your honest search for truth, you 
shall feel it your duty, under the evidence, to 
render a verdict of not guilty, that ' woe ' is to 
be visited on Alabama by the power he repre- 
sents? Is martial law to be proclaimed in Ala- 
bama, her citizens imprisoned and despoiled 
because an honest and impartial jury shall ren- 
der a verdict of acquittal when the evidence in 
their consciences and deliberate judgments is 
not sufficient to convict? To Alabama is 'weal 
or woe ' — are Alabama's liberties dependent 
upon so slender a thread ? If such is the mean- 



ing of this language of Mr. Southworth's (and 
he speaks for the Government), then I tell him 
for an Alabama jury that he has mistaken his 
men. I tell him that an Alabama jury will not 
be frightened into a verdict against the weight 
of evidence, by any fear of consequences to 
themselves, or fear of consequences to the peo- 
ple of Alabama ! An Alabama jury will dis- 
charge their duty to the prisoners at the bar 
and their duty to the country, and let God take 
care of the consequences ! For myself, I must 
express my utmost horror of such a sentiment. 
What ! Has it come to this, that, in the 
Christian year of 1872, in a Government of 
law, justice, and peace, the liberty, the ' weal or 
woe ' of a great commonwealth is dependent on 
the verdict of twelve men ? Has it come to 
this, that the verdict of an independent jury is 
to be influenced not by the evidence by which 
they are sworn to try the cause, but by the 
threats of United States Attorneys? Gentle- 
men, for myself I should say that if such ' woe ' 
shall come to Alabama as a consequence of the 
discharge of your solemn duty, come weal, come 
woe, I would discharge my duty, unswerved by 
influence and unawed by power, so help me 
God ! If Alabama's liberty is to be destroyed 
by the rendition of a verdict of not guilty in this 
case, I should reply in the indignant tones of 
the spirit of the old ship Ironsides (famous in 
revolutionary memory), when ' the harpies of 
the shore ' sought to mar the sacredness of her 
shattered hulk. In the language of New Eng- 
land's greatest poet, I should say : 

'"Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the waves; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave ! 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the God of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! ' " 

The case resulted in a mistrial, nine of the 
jurors being for acquittal and three for convic- 
tion. In the Presidential campaign of 1872, 
Governor Watts was zealous in his support of 
Horace Greeley, and made speeches in his be- 



56 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



half all over the State. On one of these occa- 
sions he spoke as follows : 

"When the news of Lee's surrender at Ap- 
pomattox flashed along the telegraphic wires and 
was heard in New York — when the sound of the 
booming cannon of the contending hosts was 
still echoing in the valleys and mountains of the 
South ; when the victors' shouts, and the wails 
of the vanquished had ceased to vibrate, Horace 
Greeley, on the ioth of April, 1S65 — the day- 
after Lee's surrender — announced himself, in his 
Tribune, in favor of universal amnesty, universal 
peace, and a restored Union of co-equal and 
harmonious States. 

" In this announcement he proved himself to 
be a Statesman of far-seeing ken, the political 
philosopher, and the friend of peace. And he 
stands before the American people to-day as the 
candidate of peace. We have had war enough : 
let us have peace — peace here in Alabama ; 
peace between the severed sections of our 
Union; peace with all mankind. General 
Grant may have been a great soldier ; he may 
be as great a soldier now ; but the war has 
ceased for seven years, and we do not need a 
soldier now to conduct the affairs of our gov- 
ernment. We all know by our past experience 
— the history of the world teaches — that, in war, 
laws and constitutions are silent. As the pas- 
sions engendered by war, and especially by civil 
war, sweep like whirlwinds over the judgments 
of men and sometimes make them forget the 
commonest instincts of humanity, the landmarks 
of liberty are swept away like the chaff before 
the wind ; written constitutions present no bar- 
riers to the wildness of warlike passions. We 
have had our experience of the evil effects of 
war ; we are tired of war ; we are tired of the 
effects of war. We may still mourn over the 
death of our lost heroes ; we may still mingle 
our tears with those of the widow and orphan ; 
we may still deck with flowers the graves of our 
noble dead. But our hearts long for the cessa- 
tion of strife — long for the calmness and qui- 
etude of peace. Solomon says there is a lime 
for all things. The time ' to hate ' is past ; the 



has come ! The time to restore to their places 
the broken pillars of our Republican Govern- 
ment has come. The time to restore the broken 
fragments of a once glorious Union has come ! 
The time to restore our broken fortunes has 
come ! The time for Southern prosperity has 
come ! And the time to restore in our hearts a 
real love for the Union has come ! How can 
the people of the United States do this? By 
electing to the chief place in our political syna- 
gogue the man whose whole life is a living poem 
of peace, big-hearted love of man, liberty and 
fraternity. ' ' 

The memorable campaign of 1874, in which 
the Democratic party, for the first time since the 
war, obtained control of the State Government, 
was an era in the political history of Alabama. 
Many years of tyrannous and profligate carpet- 
bag rule — of injustice and oppression — of spolia- 
tion and plunder, had welded together all the 
reputable elements in the State to unite in one 
supreme effort to rescue Alabama from hopeless 
degradation and utter ruin. The masses were 
thoroughly aroused, and a stern determination 
possessed every lover of liberty to throw off once 
and forever the hateful yoke of ignorance and 
corruption, forced upon the State by the Re- 
construction Acts of a partisan Congress. Gov- 
ernor Watts, like every other influential member 
of the Democratic party, was untiring in his 
exertions to this end, addressing meetings day 
after day in all parts of the State wherever his 
influence and strong personal popularity could 
be most effectively utilized. The Republicans, 
with the whole Federal machinery of troops, 
spies and informers at their back, were frantic 
in their appeals to the prejudices of the ignorant 
negroes; but all was unavailing, and the most 
tremendous party contest that ever occurred in 
Alabama resulted in the complete discomfiture 
of the party of fraud and oppression, and the 
final overthrow of carpet-bag and negro rule. 
In March, 1876, his former"partner, Thomas J. 
Judge, then Associate Justice of the Supreme 
Court of Alabama, died, and at a meecing of the 
Bar of Montgomery, held at the cctirt -house, 



time to love has come — the time for harmony 1 March 6th, a committee, consisting of John 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



57 



W. A. Stanford, Thomas H. Watts and David 
Clopton, d.rafted resolutions expressive of the 
grief of the Bar at his death. On March 8th 
the resolutions were presented to the Supreme 
Court by the Attorney-General, John W. A. 
Stanford, and spread on the minutes of the Court. 
Governor Watts, addressing the Court, said : 

"I cannot permit this mournful occasion to 
pass by without my tribute to the memory of 
my departed friend. I have known Thomas J. 
Judge for more than forty years. I knew him 
when he and I were both boys. He was my 
senior in age and in professional life. But what 
difference do three or four years make when we 
approach the confines of sixty? When he and 
I commenced our professional life we lived in 
adjoining counties and we practised in the same 
courts. I frequently served with him in the 
Legislature whilst he was a resident of Lowndes 
and I a citizen of Butler, and also after we 
became citizens of Montgomery. In 1850 he 
became my law-partner, and from that time 
until 1865 — fourteen years — we were thus asso- 
ciated, when the voice of the people placed him 
on this Bench. Before he became my partner, 
for ten years, we practised in the same courts 
and in the same circuits. In this long associa- 
tion the bonds of our friendship were made 
strong and firm. And I feel to-day as if part 
of myself had been placed in the grave. I 
mourn him not only as a citizen of this Com- 
monwealth sorrowing for a great calamity ; I 
mourn him not merely as a member of a profes- 
sion he adorned in life, but I mingle my tears 
with those who weep for him as a friend. 
Thomas J. Judge was no common man. Nature 
had stamped him in physical proportions and in 
mental stature as one of her noblest works. His 
boyhood was spent in the forests. He had but 
little school education in his boyhood or man- 
hood. Raised in the lap of poverty, and with 
no wealthy or influential friends to help and 
encourage, he carved his own way to fortune 
and fame. The printer-boy in his teens ; in 
early manhood's hour, amid toils and difficul- 
ties, he marked out his course of life, and with 
steady step pursued it. But notwithstanding his 



want of early advantages, those advantages which 
wealth and adventitious circumstances afford, 
by the native vigor of his mind and the power 
of perseverance, he attained an eminence in his 
profession and in the affections of the people 
which proclaimed him a master workman. 
Blessed with a good memory and with a noble 
ambition to excel, difficulties great to others 
were small to him. In his intercourse with men 
and in his professional career, he showed him- 
self a proficient in physical and mental science ; 
and he culled his illustrations from the whole 
domain of knowledge. In his early professional 
life he developed qualities which made him 
pre-eminent. A remarkable quickness of per- 
ception coupled with the rare power of analysis, 
enabled him, as if by intuition, frequently to 
arrive at a conclusion from a mass of compli- 
cated facts and involved legal principles and 
announce instantly the truth of the matter with- 
out any apparent effort. It was this power 
which made him the powerful advocate, the suc- 
cessful lawyer and profound jurist. These two 
great faculties made him a man among men. 
No man was ever a great lawyer, or a great 
statesman, who possessed not the power of dis- 
tinguishing one thing from another. The power 
to separate any subject into its component parts, 
to classify and arrange them, and compare each 
part with the other and with the whole com- 
bined, and to measure with exactness the length, 
breadth and depth of each, was a distinguishing 
characteristic of his mind. His style of speak- 
ing was the result of his quickness of perception 
and his logical power of analysis. His style at 
the Bar was terse, compact and incisive, striking 
at the strong points in his case, and presenting 
them with such simplicity of language and in 
such bold relief as rarely failed to convince 
courts and juries. And so solid and compact 
was his argument that it appalled the most 
astute opponent. Though capable of doing 
much work in a short time, he was not a labori- 
ous man in the common acceptation of the term. 
He frequently accomplished in a day what many 
able men would fail to accomplish in. a week. 
In all my experience at the Bar I have never 



53 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



met with one who was his equal in the rapidity 
with which he eviscerated the truth from a mass 
of complicated facts. He was a lover of truth 
for truth's sake. And the love of truth coupled 
with his great endowments rendered him a safe 
counsellor, a wise legislator, and a profound and 
upright judge. 

" His knowledge of the law was accurate, exten- 
sive and deep. He dealt not so much with cases 
as with the logic of their principles ; and his 
opinions, while on the bench, gave evidence of 
patient investigation, and are models of concise- 
ness, clearness and logical acumen. They will 
constitute his best eulogy as a jurist. In ancient 
times, one of the marks which distinguished a 
savage from a civilized people was the homage 
each paid to its honored dead. In the one the 
hero whose physical prowess excited the praise 
and admiration of his fellows was worshipped as 
a god, and now adorns the pages of heathen 
mythology. In the other the granite monument, 
the brazen column, the speaking marble, per- 
petuated the memory of the warrior, the states- 
man, the philosopher, and the poet. In more 
modern times ' the art preservative of all arts ' 
in history and song portrays the valor of the 
warrior, the virtues of the statesman, the renown 
of the orator; and the rays of heaven's sun in 
the grasp of the philosopher and the chemist 
photograph, for all coming time, the living fea- 
tures of the ' human face divine,' and still the 
mellow light of poesy gilds with its effulgence 
the sod which covers the mighty dead. To-day 
we gather the ashes of our dead and enshrine 
them in memory's urn, there to remain till 
monuments crumble and worlds decay. This 
feeling — reverence for the dead — which pervades 
alike the breast of the civilized and the savage, 
prompts us to-day. When we look around this 
hall dedicated to justice and see it draped in the 
habiliments of sorrow, we pause involuntarily in 
the midst of our business, and ask, Who of our 
great ones has fallen ? The answer, in slow and 
solemn tones, like funeral marches,' comes to 
us : ' Thomas J. Judge, an Associate Justice of 
tin's Court, has left his seat here ami has gone to 
the High Chancery of Heaven.' His voice (so 



often heard from the spot where I now stand) by 
the fiat of Almighty God is hushed, and hushed 
forever in all earthly courts. And yet the fate 
which ends his career on earth comes sooner or 
later to us all ! Death, with equal footsteps, 
treads the kingly hall and the peasant's cot ! 
The rich and the poor, the high and the low, 
stand on common ground at Death's approach ! 
The pomp and pride of life find no exemption 
from Nature's lot ! When we call to mind 
'.what shadows we are and what shadows we 
pursue,' we know but too well that the time 
rapidly approaches when each of us in this 
presence shall pass through the valley of the 
shadow of death. In that fearful hour, when 
heart and flesh shall fail us, may each of us be 
able to say, ' Oh, Lord, thy rod and thy staff, 
they comfort me. ' ' ' 

On the Fourth of July, 1876 — the centennial 
anniversary of American Independence — the citi- 
zens of Montgomery celebrated, for the first time 
since i860, the Nation's birthday. It was con- 
ceived to be a peculiarly appropriate occasion to 
revive the annual celebration of that day which 
had fallen into disuse since the commencement 
of the war between the States. Governor Watts 
was requested by the citizens and Town Council 
of Montgomery to deliver the oration, and an 
immense audience was collected in Court Square 
to listen to the proceedings. One of the oldest 
citizens in Montgomery, Neil Blue, then over 
eighty years of age, was selected to read the 
Declaration of Independence, . and although 
somewhat feeble, read the immortal words with 
great distinctness. Governor Watts, whose ring- 
ing voice was heard in every corner of the large 
square, said : 

"Ladies and Fellow- Citizens : — One hundred 
years ago this day, a body of patriots, delegates 
from thirteen separate yet united colonies, in 
solemn Congress assembled, proclaimed the im- 
mortal truths just read in your hearing. These 
colonies were established by Great Britain, and 
for years they had been under the government 
of Great Britain. They had their Legislative 
Assemblies, and had been accustomed, under 
charters from the British Crown, to exercise the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



59 



powers of local self-government. But as these 
colonies grew in population and wealth, the 
British Parliament, in an evil hour, assumed the 
authority to legislate for them in all cases what- 
soever, denying the right to the people of repre- 
sentation in legislative assemblies. This usurpa- 
tion, so inconsistent with the spirit of English 
freedom, aroused the spirit of independence in 
America. A series of unjust and oppressive 
measures towards this country, by the Crown 
and Parliament, created a spirit of intense in- 
dignation and determined resistance, and thus 
fostered that spirit of independence which freed 
the colonies from British tyranny and established 
American freedom. In terse, eloquent and 
ever-living words, the causes which led to this 
great event are set forth in the Declaration of 
Independence. The great truth in it, around 
which all others centre, is the right of every free 
people to make laws for the government of them- 
selves, and that no government can be a just or 
good government which is not based on the con- 
sent of the governed. The right of the people 
to be heard, and to act through their representa- 
tives in the making of all laws, ' is a right ines- 
timable to them and formidable to tyrants only.' 
The fundamental idea of this declaration of inde- 
pendence, and of the government built thereon, 
is that this is a government of the people ; made 
by and for the people; to be administered by 
the people through their agents, and for the 
good of the people ; protecting them in ' the en- 
joyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness.' Knowing that in all times men are more 
or less influenced by passion, and that in mo- 
ments of passion, unless restrained by some 
power superior to passion, they are swerved 
from the paths of right and justice by the 
promptings of passion, our forefathers had the 
wisdom to provide fundamental laws, embodied 
in written constitutions, intended mainly to re- 
strain themselves against themselves. They 
thereby appealed from Philip drunk to Philip 
sober — from a people drunk with passion, to a 
people sobered by reason. Hence these written 
constitutions contained the great principles of 
free government, which neither the rulers nor 



the ruled — neither the officers nor the people — ■ 
can set aside or amend except in the modes 
which the people, the great source of all political 
power, have prescribed. The written constitu- 
tion which the people of the several States 
made for their general government, binding 
alike on themselves and their agents, was to 
stand in time of war and in times of peace as a 
mighty rock, against which the waves of popular 
commotion and the storms of war should harm- 
less fall. The old Roman maxim, inter arma 
silent leges, can never properly apply to Repub- 
lican government, established on and governed 
by written constitutions. 

" Before the Fourth of July, 1776, the colonies 
had been separate and independent peoples in 
all that appertained to their domestic affairs ; 
and they were united only for common defence 
against common danger. So they remained 
separate and independent States, when this 
Declaration of Independence was made good at 
the point of the sword. The articles of Con- 
federation made during the progress of the 
Revolutionary war carefully preserved this 
separation and independence. So that when, 
after their independence of Great Britain was 
acknowledged by the British Parliament, and 
the United States became a nation amongst 
nations, these separate and independent States 
not only made their separate and independent 
State constitutions each for itself, but all united 
made a common constitution through their 
separate delegates in convention assembled. 
This common constitution, now known as the 
Federal Constitution, was submitted separately 
to each of these separate and independent States 
for voluntary ratification or rejection. So that, 
when each of these States had adopted this com- 
mon constitution, it thereby became the Con- 
stitution of each one of these States, the supreme 
law of the land, as firmly binding on the people 
thereof as were the respective State constitutions 
on the separate people of each State. The 
original thirteen States •"hus became one nation 
for intercourse with foreign powers ; one nation 
for foreign commerce and commerce between 
the several States ; one nation for common de- 



6o 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



fence and for the preservation of the liberties of 
each and all ; but they were and are separate 
and independent of each other and of the Fed- 
eral Government, in all their domestic and 
home affairs. ' Distinct as the billows — one as 
the sea.' One of the great principles of this 
Declaration of Independence and of the govern- 
ment founded thereon, is that those whom the 
people select to represent them in the different 
departments of government are the agents and 
servants of the people ; and the offices these 
agents and servants fill are not their private 
property, but they are great public trusts to 
be executed with an eye single to the good 
of the great body of the people. These offices 
are not property to be bought and sold, and 
their emoluments, privileges and influences 
are not to be used to corrupt and debauch the 
virtue and integrity of the people. But they 
are the instrumentalities through which liberty 
is to be protected and preserved, prosperity 
promoted, and general tranquillity and happi- 
ness accomplished. This idea of offices being 
property, sprang from countries where kings 
and lords ruled by ' divine right,' and where 
offices were transmitted from father to son, like 
lands and chattels. You will permit me, fellow- 
citizens, to remark, without any allusion to 
mere party politics, that one of the saddest and 
most portentous evils of our times is the pre- 
valence of the idea, that the public offices are 
the property of the persons holding them. 
From such perverted notions spring corruption 
of officers, corruption of public virtue and a 
demoralized people. The common expression, 
when applied to the offices of government, that 
' to victors belong the spoils,' is a perversion of 
the theory of our Republican government, and 
its practice is destructive of the ends of all good 
government. Offices are not 'spoils' in a Re- 
publican government. The expression itself 
sprang from the corruptcst times of old Rome, 
and it is but a translation of one sentence 
uttered by Catalinc to his conspirators. Such a 
sentiment should receive no countenance in a 
Christian land, in a Republican government in 
the nineteenth century, and especially should it 



be denounced on the one hundredth anniversary 
of our national independence, when the purity 
of our patriot fathers is to be commended to the 
love and admiration of our people. 

"Another of the grand truths announced in 
this Declaration of Independence is that all 
men are created equal in political rights. In 
the formation of governments and in the ad- 
ministration of governmental powers, this equal-' 
ity becomes inequality only by differences of 
intellectual power, and of public and private 
virtue. And from this equality of political 
rights springs that principle of religious free- 
dom which is the peculiar privilege and glory of 
the American people. Each man here has the 
right, unmolested by princes, powers or poten- 
tates, to worship God according to the dictates 
of his own conscience. Our government estab- 
lishes no religion and fosters none, whilst all 
are protected by the broad Eegis of constitu- 
tional liberty. Freedom of religion, freedom 
of the press, and freedom of the people, to peti- 
tion for redress of all grievances, the right of 
trial by jury, and the writ of habeas corpus, 
are watchwords of our Republican faith. To 
understand properly and to appreciate rightly, 
the grand results which have sprung from the 
establishment of such a government on such a 
Declaration of Independence, we must turn our 
eyes and through the light of history look back 
to one hundred years ago. Then the thirteen 
States, on the map of the world, occupied a 
narrow strip of land on the margin of the Atlan- 
tic. They stretched from the northern boundary 
of New Hampshire to the southern boundary of 
Georgia. But three millions of people then 
lived in these States. And these three millions 
of people, thus scattered from the rock-bound 
coasts of New Hampshire to the green savannahs 
of Georgia, with more than a thousand miles of 
unprotected sea-coast, in the God given strength 
of liberty, bearded the British lion in his den, 
and through long years of toil, and of peril, 
and of suffering, they won a glorious triumph, 
and established for themselves and their pos- 
terity, a government, which for a hundred 
year:., has challenged the admiration of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



61 



lovers of liberty throughout the civilized 
world. 

"We then had an East, a North, and a South, 
but no West. The West, from the mountains 
of Virginia to the coast of the Pacific, was an 
unbroken forest — trees, and rock, and rivers, and 
lakes — unseen by civilized man. From Georgia 
to Philadelphia, and from New Hampshire to 
Philadelphia, the seat of government, the Dele- 
gates of the Contine tal Congress travelled on 
horseback. The railroads which sprang into 
existence from the application of the expansive 
power of steam as a motive power, and which 
now by iron bands connect all parts of our 
country, were then unknown. A sparse and 
mainly agricultural people, with few wants, and 
those supplied by the productions of the soil, 
occupied the States. Commerce, manufactures 
and the arts, which now constitute the wealth 
and pride of the land, were little known to our 
forefathers. But, under the benign influence of 
our free institutions, they have become the con- 
trolling elements of the power and progress of 
our country. Within these one hundred years 
the thirteen States of revolutionary times have 
swelled to thirty-seven separate and independent 
States, and the three millions of population 
have increased to forty millions. The forests, 
the rocks, the rivers and the lakes, which con- 
stituted our West in revolutionary times, have 
become the homes of civilized men, and twenty- 
four States have been added to our National 
family, with rights and privileges on an equal 
footing with the original thirteen. The great 
wave of population has extended from the shores 
of the Atlantic, across mountains, lakes and 
rivers, to the shores of the Pacific — from sun- 
rise to sunset. And now these thirty-seven 
States and forty millions of people — under the 
same Constitution and Union, speaking the 
same language, under the same propitious bend 
of the heavens, worshipping the same God — 
with one heart, and with one destiny, are to-day 
piying tribute to the valor and wisdom of our 
patriot fathers, and shouting hosannah to the 
benefactors of mankind. Voices from the 
North, from the East, from the South, and from 



the new-born West, unite to-day, 1876, in one 
grand National chorus of praise to the heroes 
and statesmen, the patriots and philosophers of 
1776. In Independence Hall, one hundred 
years ago, Richard Henry Lee, a Southern man, 
first proposed in Continental Congress, resolu- 
tions declaring that the thirteen Colonies ' are 
of right, and ought to be, free and independent 
States.' John Adams, a son of the North, 
seconded these resolutions. Thomas Jefferson, a 
son of the South, wrote the immortal Declara- 
tion of Independence ; John Hancock, a son of 
the North, the presiding officer of the Congress, 
first signed his name to that document, which 
pledged the lives, the fortunes, and the sacred 
honor of its signers for its support. On this day 
fifty years ago Thomas Jefferson, the author of the 
Declaration, and John Adams, 'the Colossus' 
of its support on the floor of the Continental 
.Congress, both died, and together took their 
flight to the land of spirits. Providence vouch- 
safed to them no common boon in not only per- 
mitting them to live to see the consummation 
of their great work, but in permitting each in his 
turn, the one as the successor of the other, to 
enjoy the high privilege of being the Chief 
Magistrate of that government their joint labors 
established. In youth each labored for the rights 
of the Colonies ; in manhood they stood shoul- 
der to shoulder in the Continental Congress and 
pledged ' their lives, their fortunes, and their 
sacred honor ' to maintain the liberties of 
America, and in death, when all their labors 
were over, they were not parted, but together 
they appeared before the High Chancery of 
Heaven. May we not suppose that holy lips 
uttered, and heavenly courts echoed the wel- 
come plaudit, ' Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vants.' Another one of the signers of the Dec- 
laration, Benjamin Franklin, though born in 
Massachusetts a delegate from Pennsylvania in 
the Continental Congress, cannot be assigned to 
any clime or country. He belongs to universal 
mankind. He snatched the live thunder from 
the clouds of heaven, and with his key and kite 
tamed it, and made it subservient to the pur- 
poses of man. And now by the power of science 



52 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



this ' live thunder ' is driven all over our and 
other lands, on railroad highways ; and along 
iron cables it flashes from continent to continent, 
and makes the civilized world one universal 
brotherhood. By its means, the man on the 
golden shores of California speaks face to face, 
as it were, to his friend in New York ! The man 
in Boston talks familiarly with his friend in 
Liverpool, and Europe, Asia and America hold 
daily converse together ! The wonders achieved 
within these hundred years, through the de- 
velopments of physical science, enable us to 
rival, if not surpass apparently, one of the mira- 
cles of Holy Writ. We are told that Joshua 
commanded the sun to stand still, and the sun 
stood still until the battle was fought and the 
victory won. But witness the miracle which 
electricity works for us. What is done to-day 
in Liverpool up to 2 o'clock p. M. is known here 
in Montgomery at 10 o'clock a. m. of to-day ! 
Not only seemingly the sun has stood still ; but 
the great clock of Old Time has seemed to turn 
back its ponderous wheels four hours ! Won- 
derful power of prophecy which, through Frank- 
lin's ' live thunder,' thus enables us, at 10 o'clock 
this morning, to know and to tall what trans- 
pires at Liverpool this evening. 

" On the Fourth of July a hundred years ago, 
South Carolina united her voice with that of 
New Hampshire, and the whole thirteen States, 
all of the East, all of the North, and all of the 
then South, united their voices in proclaiming 
independence ; and thus mingled their blood 
on many a hard-fought field in maintaining it. 
George Washington, a son of the South, the 
chief military commander of the whole, marched 
through a wilderness of dangers to crown his 
grand triumph at Yorktown. And he, by the 
voice of mankind, was the ' first in war, the first 
in peace, and the first in the hearts of his coun- 
trymen.' In the Convention of States of 1787, 
the men of the North, the East, the West, and 
the South united in framing the ' magna charta' 
of our liberty and Union ! The Fourth of July 
is, therefore, by all the sacred memories of the 
past : by the remembrances of common suffering 
and common dangers; and by the common 



hopes of a brighter future, our Fourth of July ; 
the Declaration of Independence. The Consti- 
tution is our Constitution, and the Union, the 
child of the Constitution, is our Union ! And 
we can utter with sincere hearts the words of 
the great Webster, ' Union and liberty now and 
forever, one and inseparable ! ' In former days 
on the Fourth of July the hoarse voice of party 
was still. We made it our national holiday. 
The trials, the triumphs, and the glories of our 
common ancestry were the themes of our dis- 
course, and thousands of tongues grew eloquent 
over the valor of our Revolutionary soldiers and 
the wisdom of our Revolutionary fathers. If, 
in the bitterness of party strife, ought had been 
said to offend, on the Fourth of July that 
' charity which thinketh no evil' covered with 
its broad mantle of forgiveness the wrongs of 
the past. It is true, that, for the last fifteen 
years, the Fourth of July has not been commem- 
orated as of yore in the South. We seemed to 
have forgotten the prophetic words of John 
Adams, written in July, 1776, that it (the day) 
' ought to be commemorated as the day of de- 
liverance, by solemn act of devotion to Almighty 
God, from one end of this continent to the 
other, from this time forward forever more.' 
It was the late contest between the two great 
sections of the Union, begun in 1861 and ended 
in 1865, which suspended our celebration of the 
Fourth of July. This contest has been greatly 
misunderstood in the North, and even amongst 
our own people. It never was the purpose of 
the South, in commencing that fearful contest, 
to destroy the principles of free government em- 
bodied in the Constitution of the United States. 
Quite the reverse was the purpose. It was not 
to destroy, but to preserve this great charter of 
liberty from what was supposed to be an attack 
on some of its vital principles that the South 
commenced that contest. The Constitution 
which the Confederate States made for their 
own government, and which they struggled to 
maintain for four long years, shows that the 
South was not the less a lover of liberty because 
she sought to separate from the North. But the 
contest was ended by the overthrow of the Con- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



63 



federate cause and power ; and we of the South, 
I trust, with becoming fortitude and dignity, 
have acquiesced in the results of that contest. 
And whilst we may have thought that . harsh 
treatment has been extended to us, in the eleven 
years of peace, since the war ended ; still »ow, 
that the strife and din of war are hushed, and 
the exacerbations engendered have, by the mel- 
lowing influences of time, ceased to agitate our 
bosoms, we are and have been ready to renew 
our faith to the Constitution, and to the Union 
which is the offspring of the Constitution. This 
is the centennial year of our national independ- 
ence. Let it be as well our national jubilee. 
If any one complains of us for the past few 
years, let him remember, that when the storm 
on the ocean arises, shuts out the sunlight of 
heaven and covers with its blackness the whole 
horizon, moved' by the wind the billows ride 
mountain high on the surface of the sea and 
with fury lash the shore. The storm may end ; 
the clouds which darkened the sky may all be 
gone; the wind's hollow sound maybe silent; 
the sunshine, in all its beauty and magnificence, 
may reappear ; and yet for hours, may be for 
days, the waves, the children of the storm, may 
still lash the shore. Here in the city of Mont- 
gomery, where the Confederate States were 
born, and where their President was inaugu- 
rated, amid the booming of cannon and the 
shouts of the excited populace — Confederate 
cannon, before the rising of the morning sun, 
salute the one hundredth anniversary of Ameri- 
can Independence. And now, if it is permitted 
by Providence for the spirits of the great and 
good to revisit the earth, the scene of their for- 
mer strifes and glories, we may fondly suppose 
that on this day the spirits of our Revolutionary 
fathers are hovering over us. And right here 
in their presence, and in the presence of the 
Heavenly Host, may the God of Nations forgive 
all our national and individual sins. Indulge 
me one moment longer, fellow-citizens. Im- 
agine that some one of us — it may be some 
bright-eyed boy — could witness our next centen- 
nial anniversary; the celebration of the Fourth 
of July, 1976. What a spectacle would ravish 



his sight ! The beatific vision of St. John on the 
Isle of Patmos was scarcely more enrapturing 
than this spectacle would be ! 

"If our people be true to the Constitution; 
if good will and internal peace prevail ; if science 
continue its giant stride ; if God be our God, and 
we be His people ; judging the future by the 
past, the States composing the American Union 
will be multiplied to one hundred States ; the 
population will be increased from forty to four 
hundred millions ; our territory will extend to 
the Isthmus of Panama from the frozen lakes of 
the North; railroads, like a net-work, will con- 
nect all parts of this vast country, and intelli- 
gence will flash along innumerable telegraphic 
wires from State to State, from city to city, and 
from village to village ! The school-house and 
the church will adorn every hill and beautify 
every valley ! And these four hundred millions 
of people from one hundred free, separate, inde- 
pendent and co-equal States, protected by the 
same Federal Constitution, speaking the same 
language, worshipping the same God, will unite 
their voices in anthems of praise and adoration 
to the Ruler of the Universe, and of gratitude 
to the patriots of two hundred years ago, for the 
blessings of American freedom. And then when 
one hundred stars shall be emblazoned on our 
national flag, these four hundred millions of peo- 
ple may turn, as we to-day turn, and apostro- 
phise that flag as the ensign of a great Confeder- 
ate Republic. 

" ' When Freedom, from her mountain height, 

Unfurled her banner to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of Night, 

And set those stars of glory there ! 
Flag of the free heart's only home ! 

By angel hands to valor given ! 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 

And all thy hues were born in Heaven ! 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Breathes there a foe who dare oppose us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 

And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? ' " 

In the Presidential campaign of 1876, Gov- 
ernor Watts took an active part in canvassing 
the State for Tilden and Hendricks. Soon after 
the election, prosecutions were commenced in 



6 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the United States Circuit Court against some of 
the best citizens of Alabama for alleged viola- 
tions of the election laws of the United States. 

In the March following the Inaugural Address 
of President Hayes made a very favorable im- 
pression throughout the South, and there was a 
general disposition towards harmony between 
the sections. As these prosecutions were incon- 
sistent with the sentiments uttered by President 
Hayes, some of the friends of Governor Watts 
suggested to him that a favorable opportunity 
presented itself to endeavor to obtain from the 
Attorney-General a discontinuance of these 
prosecutions, most of which were frivolous and 
without foundation in fact. Governor Watts 
accordingly addressed a letter to Hon. Charles 
Devens, the Attorney-General of the United 
States, on the subject, and the following cor- 
respondence ensued : 

" Montgomery, Ala. 
April 26//;, 1S77. 

"Hon. Charles Devens, Atfy-GerCl, U. S. : 

"Dear Sir: — I have been profoundly im- 
pressed with the wisdom manifested by President 
Hayes in his Inaugural Address. This impres- 
sion thus produced has been deepened by his 
conduct since towards the South. His policy is 
eminently wise, and is based on the highest 
sense of duty to the Constitution ; and it seems 
prompted by the foresight of a statesman, whose 
glory is to witness the cordial union and har- 
mony of all sections of a country, governed by 
common laws and speaking a common language. 
Divided as the North and the South have been 
in the past, agitated with that bitterness of feel- 
ing always engendered by internal war, it is now 
peculiarly soothing to the weaker section to know 
that through the promptings and policy of the 
President, the North, for the future, is to grasp 
hands with the South ; and the only differences 
henceforth shall spring from rival exertions of 
each section to promote the common weal of the 
country. If I rightly interpret these acts and 
announcements of President Hayes, one other 
act is needed to crown the good work already 
begun. There are many prosecutions in the 
Circuit Court of the United States, commenced 
in height of party excitement just after the last 
Presidential election, which ought, perhaps, 
never to have been started, and which now it 
would be wise to discontinue. These prosecu- 
tions are based on alleged violation of the elec- 



tion laws of the United States. Many of them 
are frivolous — some for mere nominal violations 
of law — and many are wholly unfounded in 
truth, based on the prejudices born of defeat. 
These prosecutions, for the most part, are against 
the best citizens — men loyal to constitutional 
government and to the best interests of society. 

" Now I suggest as an act of grace, in keeping 
with the policy of the President, to have thete 
prosecutions discontinued. Nothing, in my 
judgment, would tend more to foster that spirit 
of harmony and good will essential to the hap- 
piness of our people, than to blot out these un- 
pleasant reminiscences of the past. The spirit 
of this great people, as evidenced by the words 
and conduct of the President, will not tolerate 
henceforth any policy ' based on the hates of the 
past ' to the exclusion of the hopes of the future ! 
It will rejoice the heart of every good man to see 
hereafter that the ' scarlet shirt has been folded 
up and laid away in some secluded spot, with no 
headstone to mark the place of its eternal rest.' 

"In thus addressing you, I believe I but re- 
flect the sentiments of every good man in the 
State of Alabama. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 
"Your obedient servant, 

"T. H. Watts." 

"Department of Justice, Washwcton, 
"May id, 1877. 

"T. H. Watts, Esq., Montgomery, Ala. : 

" Sir : — I have received your letter of the 
26th ultimo, in which you request that an order 
be issued by this department for the dismissal 
of indictments now pending in Alabama, for 
violations of the United States Statutes relating 
to elections. The Attorney-General, as chief 
law-officer of the Government, is bound to see 
that all laws defining offences and prescribing 
punishments therefor are fully and faithfully en- 
forced ; he cannot assume to exercise the par- 
doning power, and by general order dismiss 
prosecutions for violations of this or that crimi- 
nal statute. To this rule the laws for the pro- 
tection of the elective franchise form no excep- 
tion ; and while they should not be administered 
in a severe or vindictive spirit, neither should 
their purposes be thwarted. The United States 
Attorneys will be instructed to prosecute only 
important cases where the guilt is clear and the 
evidence overwhelming, and in such prosecu- 
tions to act without bias in favor of or against 
any political party. I am sure you will agree 
with me that it is vital to a Republican govern- 
ment depending upon the free suffrages of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



65 



people, that the elective franchise should be 
kept pure, and it would seem that the legislation 
to this end should have a fair trial. In my 
endeavors in this direction I earnestly hope for 
your assistance and cordial co-operation. 
" Very respectfully, 
"Charles Devens, Attorney-General." 

" Montgomery, Ala., May $th, 1S77. 
"Hon. Charles Devens : 

"Sir : — I have your letter of the 2d inst. in 
reply to mine of the 26th ult. You are mis- 
taken in supposing that I made any request that 
an order should be issued by the Department of 
Justice for the dismissal of indictments now 
pending in Alabama for violation of the United 
States Statutes relating to elections. I simply- 
made a suggestion that the discontinuance of 
frivolous prosecutions, or such as were based on 
mere nominal" violation of the election laws and 
those wholly unfounded in truth, would be wise 
and consistent with the policy of the President, 
as shadowed forth in his inaugural, and in his 
conduct since towards the South. I know the 
Attorney -General has no pardoning power, and 
that the Constitution vests that in the President. 
But the Attorney-General has control of the 
Department of Justice, and a suggestion from 
him to the District Attorneys operates with the 
force of law. I fully agree with you that the 
purity of the ballot-box is essential to the pre- 
servation of public liberty in a Republican 
Government. But I am sure that the elections 
for President and members of Congress last year 
in Alabama were conducted with fairness, and 
that every man really entitled to vote was per- 
mitted to vote as he pleased, by the party to 
which I belonged. And I feel equally sure that 
the prosecutions to which I alluded in my letter 
of the 26th ult. were prompted for the most part 
by the bitterness of party feelings, excited and 
intensified by defeat. I had supposed from the 
sentiments uttered by President Hayes, and by 
his prompt action in restoring the civil authority 
in the States to its legitimate supremacy over 
the military power, that a new era of peace 
and prosperity was dawning on us. I hence 
supposed that the oppression of the best citizens 
by unjust and harassing prosecutions in the 
United States Courts would receive no counte- 
nance from the President, nor from the Depart- 
ment of Justice. Hence I made the suggestion 
contained in my letter of the 26th ult. This 
suggestion was prompted solely by my desire to 
see, in the future, the most cordial good feeling 
5 



between parties and sections, prevail throughout 
the land. I have the honor to be, very respect- 
fully, "T. H. Watts." 

At a meeting of the Lee Monument Associa- 
tion, held in the First Baptist Church, Mont- 
gomery, February 28th, 1878, Governor Watts 
delivered the following address : 

" We are told in our school-books that, before 
our Revolutionary war, a hundred years ago, the 
French, who then owned Canada, and the Eng- 
lish, who owned the United Colonies, had a war. 
There had existed for centuries a hatred between 
the French and English peoples — a hatred trans- 
mitted from father to son. In the war of which 
I now speak the last hope of the French hung 
on maintaining the heights of Quebec, a posi- 
tion deemed impregnable. The hope of Eng- 
lish success depended upon taking Quebec 
Heights. Gallant troops defended and gallant 
troops attacked these heights. With a daring 
unsurpassed in history, Wolfe, the English com- 
mander, at the head of his braves, ascended these 
heights, and there triumphed over the French. 
At the moment of victory to the English and of 
defeat to the French, Montcalm, the French 
commander, received a mortal wound ; about 
the same moment Wolfe, the English comman- 
der, received a mortal wound ; each fell near his 
foe. A shout from the soldiers is heard — ' They 
fly. ' These words caught the ear of each dying 
hero! Wolfe asked, 'Who fly?' The answer 
came : ' The Frenchmen fly.' ' Then I die con- 
tented,' were the dying words of Wolfe. ' Then 
it were best that I should die,' were the last 
words of Montcalm. Together the spirits of 
these heroes winged their upward flight to the 
presence of their God ! Side by side, in the 
spirit land, on ' Fame's eternal camping-ground,' 
the tents of Wolfe and Montcalm were erected, 
and the sunlight of Heaven's mercy illumined 
both. 

"Years after, when the hatreds engendered 
by war had been buried in the grave which time 
makes, the conquerors of Canada erected on the 
heights of Quebec a monument to perpetuate 
the deeds there enacted. A granite column, 
with its base on Quebec's heights and its sum- 



66 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



mit so high it catches the first beams of morning 
light, stands there to-day; a monument not only 
to English courage, but to French courage too, 
and to English greatness. On the southern face 
of this column are carved the dying words of 
Wolfe ! On its northern face are carved the 
last words of Montcalm. Who can read this 
page in the history of a great nation without 
involuntarily pausing? What courage in battle ! 
What moderation in victory ! What homage to 
a fallen foe ! What grandeur of soul is here 
displayed in the Anglo-Saxon character ? We 
feel our bosoms swell with pride, not alone 
because we are the children of this great race 
— speaking the same language, with a kindred 
love of liberty — but with admiration that our 
English ancestors should so rise above the ties 
of kindred and of country as to pay tribute to 
the virtues of a foe ! The monument, which 
heralds the heroism of Montcalm, perpetuates 
the heroism of Wolfe, and the magnanimity 
of Great Britain. Why are such monuments 
erected ? Not so much to preserve the fame of 
those to whose memory they are built, as to per- 
petuate the emotions of a grateful people ; the 
love they bear to some great virtue, or the hom- 
age they show for some boon to mankind ! The 
pen of the poet or of the historian, through 'the 
art preservative of all arts,' now fixes for all 
coming time, the prowess of the soldier, and the 
fame of the philosopher and statesman. But the 
emotions of the heart cannot be photographed — 
the marble and the granite must represent them 
to after generations. Why then should not the 
people of the South, yea, the people of the 
North as well, build a monument to Robert E. 
Lee? His maiden sword was unsheathed under 
the flag of the Union, in the cause of the Union, 
on the plains of Mexico. But his deeds in the 
cause of the South placed him side by side with 
the world's great warriors and heroes ! He was 
not great only on the battle-field : he was great 
in the magnitude of his conceptions, great in 
the power of his performance ; great when 
crowned with victory, but great even in defeat. 
Immediately after the battle of Gettysburg, the 
cause of Lee's defeat was attributed, by some of 



the fault-finding spirits, to some of the subordi- 
nate commanders. Lee at onee rebuked the 
complaint and said, ' It was my fault.' 'It was 
my fault.' There are some points of his char- 
acter best illustrated by the relation of incidents. 
Whilst General Custis Lee, the son, was at 
college, General Lee wrote him a letter, which 
shows, perhaps, the grandest trait in his character. 
He enjoined upon his son that the noblest word in 
the English language was ' Duty ' — the perform- 
ance of duty — duty in civil life, duty to country, 
and duty to God. On the outbreak of the recent 
unfortunate war between the States, and when 
the United States authorities undertook to coerce 
the States South into obedience to what they 
believed the obligations of the States to the 
Constitution, Virginia seceded. General Lee at 
once determined to resign his commission as one 
of the oldest Colonels in the United States ser- 
vice. He made known his intentions to General 
Scott, under whom he had served in Mexico. 
General Scott attempted to dissuade him from 
his purpose. He was offered by President Lin- 
coln, as an inducement to remain, one of the 
chief commands in the forces of the Union. 
Lee promptly declined the offer, so flattering to 
his ability as a commander. Why did he refuse 
it? Virginia, his mother, had cast her fortunes 
with her sisters of the South ; and the sword 
of Lee could never be drawn against the land 
of his birth. Duty to her made him refuse all 
the glittering honors which wealth and power 
could command. I will not speak of his deeds 
in defence of Virginia and the South for four 
long years. The world has seen them, and his- 
tory has recorded them. One incident known 
to myself I will relate, because it shows the man 
in the midst of his duties in camp. A few days 
after the seven days' fight around Richmond, 
an order was issued from the head-quarters, in 
the city, that no person should have a permit to 
go within General Lee's lines, unless he had a 
wounded son within the lines. An old friend 
of mine, known to some persons present, visited 
Richmond to look after the comfort of his sons, 
then in the Virginia army. He resided in Wil- 
cox county, Ala., and his name was Enoch 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



67 



Cook. At the commencement of the war he had 
nine sons able to do service in the army. Five 
of them joined the army of the Confederate 
States in Virginia, and three joined the western 
army, and the ninth son remained at home to 
protect the family. Mr. Cook himself, though 
considerably over fifty years old, went as a pri- 
vate soldier to Virginia, and served there for 
twelve months. One of these sons was killed 
at Seven Pines. At the time of the seven days' 
fight, four of his sons were still in the army 
there. One was wounded in that fight, and he 
was in the hospital at Richmond, and one was 
sick within General Lee's lines. Under these 
circumstances he called on me at my office in 
Richmond, and asked for a letter to General 
Lee. I gave him one, in which I stated the par- 
ticulars I have just named, and I added, in con- 
clusion of the letter, that Mr. Cook should, in 
my judgment, be considered an honorary mem- 
ber of the Virginia army. 

"With this letter Mr. Cook passed sentinel 
after sentinel, and reached General Lee's head- 
quarters. He found General Lee in his tent, 
dressed in citizen's garb, busily engaged in 
writing. General Lee invited him to take a 
seat, and said that he would attend to him as 
soon as the business was through. When through 
with the writing, he approached Mr. Cook, and 
with that kindness of tone which was his nature, 
he asked, ' What can I do for you? ' Mr. Cook 
handed him the letter. He read the letter 
through, and promptly said, ' Mr. Cook, I want 
to shake your hand. I am proud to shake the 
hand of such a man. I agree with Judge Watts ; 
you ought to be an honorary member of my army, 
and you shall be.' And he wrote on the back 
of that letter, and handed it to Mr. Cook, the 
following words : ' Mr. Enoch Cook, the bearer 
of this letter, has a right to go whenever and 
wherever he pleases, within my lines.' Signed, 
Robert E. Lee. When the war was over ; when 
the last Confederate gun was fised ; when the 
last Confederate flag had been lowered; when 
the soldiers of the South had succumbed to the 
power of numbers, and awaited in calm dignity 
their fate at the hands of the victors : the first 



word upon General Lee's lips to those who had 
followed him in triumph and in defeat was, 
' Duty,' the 'duty' of obedience to the 'powers 
that be.' With his property confiscated by the 
United States authorities, or lost in the perils of 
the time, at the end of the war he found himself 
poor in this world's goods ; yet he was rich in 
the affections of his countrymen. The hearts 
of the whole Southern people yearned towards 
him. They offered him from their means a mu- 
nificent donation sufficient to support him and 
his in comfort and ease. With a modesty and 
forgetfulness of self, only paralleled by his great- 
ness as a commander, he declined to accept the 
affectionate offering from his beloved South. 
He preferred the 'duty' of self-support. 

"Now that the war between the States has 
ceased for thirteen years, and time has somewhat 
healed the wounds the bloody conflict made, it 
is meet for Virginia, the mother State, assisted 
by those who love the memory of her noble son, 
to build on Capitol Square one other monument 
to speak to the eye of every passer-by. 

" On that Capitol Square in Richmond, there 
now stands the equestrian statue of her son who, 
by the verdict of history, 'was first in war, first 
in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men.' Surrounding the pedestal of that statue 
stand the statues of many of Virginia's noblest 
sons. There stands Patrick Henry, as he stood 
in the House of Burgesses, when he uttered the 
sentiment, ' Give me liberty or give me death ! ' 
There stands Thomas Jefferson, with the roll of 
the Declaration of Independence in his hands, 
as he stood in the Continental Congress. There 
stands John Marshall, the companion of Wash- 
ington, the great Chief Justice of the United 
States, and there stand others, Virginia's house- 
hold gods of revolutionary times. From this 
monument, a few yards distant, stands in the 
same capitol grounds the statue of another noble 
son of Virginia, not renowned in war, but wear- 
ing the civic crown of peace, the great Henry 
Clay. There has been added since the war, 
upon the Capitol Square, another statue of one 
of Virginia's sons, the great 'Stonewall' Jack- 
son, ' the right arm of the Virginia army,' as 



68 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



General Lee called him. This statue is the contri- 
bution which English admiration pays to Ameri- 
can valor. It is fit, eminently fit, that the statue 
of another son of Virginia should stand in the 
same Capitol Square to mark the progress of the 
age, and to show that the love of the great and 
the good still warms the heart. Let the column 
be there raised to Robert E. Lee i On one of 
its faces let there be inscribed words fit to show 
the love the South bears him, as a man, as a sol- 
dier, and as a Christian hero. Let one of its 
faces, for the present, be left blank. When the 
time comes, as surely .it will come, the North 
will carve thereon her reverence for the hero 
who, though a Virginian, and a Confederate 
warrior, was yet an American, giving undying 
honor to the Anglo-Saxon race. President Lin- 
coln, who was himself a great and good man, has 
expressed what will ere long be the prevailing 
sentiment of every Northern heart. Just after 
the great battle of Gettysburg, Mr. Lincoln 
said : ' The men who held the heights will be 
remembered forever, but the men who charged 
up the heights will live in history too ; and I 
shall always be proud to remember that they 
were my countrymen. ' On the blank left on the 
northern face of the Lee monument will be 
carved a sentiment fulfilling the prophetic vision 
of Abraham Lincoln : " The red and the white 
roses have blended their hues in England's 
glory. Let the blue and the gray be united in 
a common heritage of American valor.' I read, 
not long since, Mrs. Jamieson's account of a 
visit to Dannecker, one of Germany's greatest 
sculptors. She found in his studio a marble 
statue representing our Saviour. Dannecker 
had dreamed three nights in succession of seeing 
the Saviour; and so vividly was impressed on 
his mind the surpassing loveliness of his fea- 
tures, that whilst the inspiration of the dream 
was upon him, he made the cast of a statue and 
placed it in his studio. Whilst it stood there a 
child of nine years came in, and as soon as he 
saw it, he pointed to the statue, and in his 
childish delight exclaimed: 'The Redeemer! 
the Redeemer ! ' Let the statue of Robert E. 
Lee rise in all the grandeur of his physical pro- 



portions, and let it be so lifelike in the repre- 
sentation of his qualities of mind and heart, that 
the stranger passing by, a hundred years hence, 
will exclaim : ' Behold ! Truth ! Greatness ! 
Honor!'" 

After the congressional election in November, 
187S, the United States authorities indicted a 
considerable number of the State officers super- 
intending the elections in Alabama, for alleged 
violations of what they termed -'Provisions of 
the State Laws." In the United States vs. Mc- 
Ghee and others, one of these cases, Governor 
Watts appeared for the defence, and demurred 
to the indictment, claiming that it only charged 
the violation of a State law, and consequently 
the offence alleged to have been committed 
could not be tried in the United States Court. 
There was no Act of Congress alleged to have 
been violated, and the United States cannot 
undertake to punish a citizen for a violation of 
a law of .Alabama. The United States cannot 
punish a man for counterfeiting the coin of 
Great Britain or France, nor for violating a 
statute of Alabama. The United States Courts 
cannot exercise any common law jurisdiction. 
This has been the law since the time of Chief 
Justice Marshall. It is a Court of limited and 
special jurisdiction, and has no powers except 
those conferred by the Constitution and statute ; 
and unless an indictment charges that -a statute 
of the United States has been violated, it is ipso 
facto void. It must charge the violation of 
some Act of Congress to be sound. Congress 
may adopt pro hac vice some law of a State, but 
unless the indictment distinctly charges that the 
law violated is a statute of the United States, the 
United States cannot punish any citizen for its 
violation. No State officer can be proceeded 
against criminally by the United States for a 
violation of a State law. Governor Watts then 
proceeded to review the powers of the govern- 
ment and the States as exercised under their 
respective constitutions, and cited the debates 
in the Convention of 1787, to show that the 
Federal government could not exercise any 
power save that especially granted by the Con- 
stitution, and in the exercise of the powers thus 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



69 



granted the States, like the general government, 
were sovereign in their respective spheres. Thus 
the United States cannot undertake to punish a 
citizen for violating a State law, nor can any 
State punish a citizen for violating the laws of 
the United States. He then read from 2d 
Wood's Reports and 24th Howard's Reports, es- 
pecially referring to the case of the Common- 
wealth of Kentucky vs. Dennison in regard to 
the particular powers of the government and the 
States. He mentioned that the defendants were 
State officers when acting as inspectors of the 
election ; that they were acting solely under a 
statute law of Alabama, and hence, not having 
violated any law of the United States, the gov- 
ernment cannot undertake to punish them. If 
the Congress of the United States had adopted 
the election laws of Alabama, then it became a 
law of the United States, and was at once abro- 
gated as a law of Alabama. This indictment 
charges that the defendants violated a law of 
Alabama, not of the United States. How then 
can the United States undertake to punish them 
for violating a State law ? They are not charged 
with violating any law of the United States, and 
hence they are not amenable to the government, 
for it can no more undertake to punish a citizen 
for violating a State law than it could punish 
a person for counterfeiting the coinage of France. 
The United States cannot punish a citizen who 
has not violated some law of the United States. 
Where has Congress ever adopted the election 
law of Alabama as a law of the United States? 
The moment it does so the law ceases to be the 
law of Alabama and becomes alone the law of 
the United States. In any aspect of the case, 
therefore, this indictment is defective and void. 
If Congress has ever adopted the election law of 
Alabama, then the indictment should have 
charged the defendants with violating the law 
of the United States, whereas it charges them 
with violating the law of Alabama. If they did 
violate the law of Alabama tljen the United 
States has no jurisdiction, the courts of this 
State alone being empowered to punish persons 
for violation of State laws. This argument was 
pronounced the ablest and most logical ever 



delivered in Montgomery, and for strength and 
symmetry deserves to be ranked with the foremost 
legal arguments of the time. Previous to this 
speech the cases were being pressed for trial, but 
it had the effect of inducing Judge Bruce to con- 
tinue the cases until the May term of 1879, in 
order that he might have the benefit of consulta- 
tion with Judge Joseph P. Bradley, of the United 
States Supreme Court, and Judge Woods, of the 
United States Circuit Court. 

Governor Watts has occupied the leading 
position at the Alabama Bar for the past thirty 
years, and both as an advocate and a lawyer has 
few equals now and no superiors in the past. 
His practice is mainly in the Supreme Court of 
the State, where few important cases are argued 
without him, and he is retained extensively by 
other members of the profession in all parts of 
the State to argue cases for them. Thoroughly 
proficient in every department of his profession, 
he has devoted especial attention to constitu- 
tional law, in the minute and technical knowl- 
edge of which he is not excelled by any lawyer 
in this country. His speech on the constitu- 
tionality of the electoral law before the United 
States District Court in December, 1878, was a 
masterpiece of exhaustive reasoning, and in 
thorough knowledge of the subject far surpassed 
any speech made in Congress on this important 
subject. His manner is earnest and forcible, 
and his terse, vigorous language, strong com- 
mon sense, and deep sympathy with human 
nature, enable him to wield an immense power- 
over juries. As an orator he is unrivalled, 
riveting the attention by his clear logical argu- 
ment, while charming the ear by his ornate 
periods and magnificent command of language. 
A finished Latin and Greek scholar and well 
read in classical and general literature, his mind 
is a vast store-house of well-arranged informa- 
tion on every subject to be drawn upon at 
pleasure. Possessing the inestimable boon of a 
good memory, cultivation has enabled him so to 
concentrate his mind orr what is passing as to 
fix indelibly in his memory the ipsissima verba 
used by others, and thus dispense with note- 
taking, to his great advantage in reply. Con- 



70 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



scientious and thorough in everything he under- [ 
takes, he completely identifies himself with every 
case in which he is engaged, and is unusually 
vigilant and adroit in seizing every opening 
afforded by his opponent. In politics, previous 
to the war, he was an active and energetic leader 
of the old line Whig party in Alabama, and 
always took the lion's share in public speaking, j 
Since the war he has been a Conservative Demo- j 
crat and has made more important speeches on 
the vital political questions of the day than 
any member of that party. He attended the 
sittings of the Congressional Committee to in- 
vestigate the conduct of the election in Alabama 
in 1876, held in Washington, and did good ser- 
vice for his party in exposing the groundless- 
ness of the charges made by the disappointed 
and chagrined Republicans. So great is his 
popularity in all parts of his native State that, 
did he so desire it, he could be elected to any 
office in the gift of the people. He took an 
active part in securing the removal of the capi- 
tal of the State from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery 
in 1S45-46, and has ever devoted his best 
energies to the interests of his people and sec- 
tion. He is an active and zealous member of 
the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, and 
an exemplary Christian gentleman of great 
purity of life and character. He has devoted 
considerable time to chemistry, of which he is 
an ardent student, and early in life intended to 
devote himself to that science as a profession. 

Of strong and vigorous physical constitution, 
tall — six feet two inches in his stocking feet — and 
proportioned accordingly, he owes much of his 
unvarying health to prudent habits and daily 
physical exercise. Commencing life with no 
capital but a good education, by his own exer- 
tions he had, before the termination of the war, 
acquired a large property in negroes, lands, and 
stocks. Ever liberal of his means and dispens- 
ing with open hand to all who needed, espe- 
cially to religious and educational purposes, he 
never refused to aid in the building of a church, 
a school, or a public bridge — these three cover- 
in-, as he is wont to say, most of the duties of 
man in the promotion of religion, education, 



and commerce. The end of the war left him, 
like many of the best men in the South, with 
heavy liabilities and but small means to meet 
them. Although compelled to seek the pro- 
tection of the bankrupt court for the time, he 
has since paid more than $150,000 of his former 
indebtedness, and now looks forward at an early 
day to the time when he can say, "I owe no 
man anything but to love him." The only re- 
gret he expresses for the loss of his property is 
that it deprives him of the power to aid the 
needy and deserving, fully realizing as he does 
the sacred truth that it is more blessed to give 
than to receive. Kind-hearted and generous, of 
spotless integrity, and with a high sense of 
honor, his noble character has made him re- 
spected and beloved, and gained him a lasting 
place in the hearts of his fellow-citizens. 

Governor Watts has been twice married. First 
in January, 1842, to Eliza B. Allen, daughter 
of Wade' Allen, of Montgomery, Ala., and sister 
of General W. W. Allen, of that city. She died, 
August 31st, 1S73. 1° September, 1875, he 
married his second wife, Mrs. E. C. Jackson, 
widow of Jefferson F. Jackson, his former part- 
ner. By his first marriage he has six children 
living: John W. Watts and Thomas Henry 
Watts are practising law in partnership with 
their father ; Florence L. is the wife of Colonel 
D. S. Troy, a prominent member of the Bar of 
Montgomery, and a member of the State Senate 
of Alabama; Catherine P. married Captain 
Robert Collins, of West Point, Miss. ; Alice B. 
is the wife of Alexander Troy, a promising law- 
yer of Montgomery ; and Minnie Garratt Watts, 
his youngest daughter, is a girl of fourteen. 



GENERAL A. R. LAWTON.' 

Georgia. 

<? LEXANDER ROBERT LAWTON was 
born in Beaufort District, S. C, No- 
vember 4th. 1S18. The Lawtons are 
-^S) of Welsh descent, Joseph A. Lawton 
® having come to this country in the 
early part of the eighteenth century and settled 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



7i 



on Edisto Island, S. C. At that time the plan- 
ters in that part of South Carolina consisted of 
old and wealthy families such as the Seabrookes 
and many others, and the Lawtcns held their 
own with the proudest of them. Joseph Law- 
ton, son of the preceding, was an officer in the 
Revolutionary army, and Alexander James Law- 
ton, his son, and father of the subject of this 
sketch, was a planter, and took an active part 
in public affairs in his district, being for many 
years a member of the State House of Repre- 
sentatives, and afterwards of the Senate, and 
also a member of the State Convention that 
passed the ordinance of nullification ; he lived to 
be nearly eighty-six years of age, and married a 
daughter of Dr. George Masse, a physician of 
Irish descent, while his mother was of Huguenot 
extraction. Alexander R. Lawton received his 
early education at a school common to the 
planters' sons in his district, and, in June, 1835, 
entered West Point Academy, from whence he 
graduated in 1839, and was commissioned in 
the First Regiment of United States Artillery. 
Among his contemporaries at West Point were 
General Llalleck ; General Stevens, who grad- 
uated at the head of his class, and was after- 
wards killed at the second battle of Manassas ; 
General Canby, subsequently killed by Captain 
Jack, the Indian ; and General Gilmer, who was 
in charge of the harbor of San Francisco at the 
outbreak of the civil war. For eighteen months 
after leaving West Point he was stationed on the 
northern frontier of New York and Maine, but, 
becoming weary of the inaction of military life 
in time of peace, resigned his commission, and, 
in January, 1841, entered Harvard Law School. 
After eighteen months study he received the 
degree of Bachelor of Laws, and, returning to 
South Carolina, read law in the office of Mr. 
Colcock. In 1843 ne was admitted to the Bar 
and commenced the practice of his profession 
in Savannah, Ga. Some years later he com- 
menced cotton planting in the southwestern part 
of Georgia, near Albany, and, though unable 
from the professional demands on his time to 
give more than occasional personal supervision 
to his plantation, it was successfully conducted 



by his overseer with some sixty negroes, the 
family spending some months of every year 
there. During the war the plantation furnished 
large supplies for the army, and, on General 
Lawton' s return after the surrender, he found 
abundance of everything, the plantation being 
fortunately situated outside the track of Sher- 
man's raiders. After the emancipation the 
plantation was carried on for many years with 
hired labor, but, under the changed condition 
of the colored people, it was found impossible 
successfully to conduct it without constant per- 
sonal supervision, and, accordingly, in 1870, it 
was sold. Numbers of his former slaves still 
worked for him, and, like most Southern gentle- 
men, he has still among his domestic servants 
some who were formerly his slaves. 

In 1850 he became President of the Augusta 
and Savannah Railroad, and from its organiza- 
tion until its completion, in 1854, supervised its 
construction. In 1855 he was elected to the 
House of Representatives in the Slate Legisla- 
ture, from Savannah, serving one term, and in 
1859 was returned to the State Senate. He was 
Colonel of the First Regiment of Georgia Volun- 
teers, the only volunteer regiment in the State, 
when, in January, 1861, he took possession of 
Fort Pulaski, under State authority. At the com- 
mencement of hostilities, in April, 1861, he 
received his commission as Brigadier-General in 
the Confederate States Army, and was assigned 
to the command of the Georgia coast from 
the Savannah river to the Florida line. He was 
engaged in organizing the troops, and construct- 
ing the harbor defences until June, 1862, when 
he was ordered by General Lee, with whom he 
had been on most friendly terms during that 
officer's residence in Savannah, to Virginia, and 
with his brigade joined General T. J. (Stone- 
wall) Jackson's army in time to march down 
with him from the Valley and take part in what 
is known as the "seven days' fight around Rich- 
mond," a contest unparalleled in its duration, 
and remarkable for a series of battles, any one 
of which might rank with the most celebrated 
in history, and distinguished by an obstinacy on 
the part of the Federal army, that was only 



72 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



broken by the most tremendous exertions ever 
made by the Southern troops. The first battle 
of Cold Harbor was fought on Thursday, June 
26th, and from four o'clock until eight the battle 
raged with a display of the utmost daring and 
intrepidity, on the part of the Confederate 
soldiers. The Federal lines were finally broken, 
the strong positions all carried, and night 
covered the retreat of McClellan's broken. and 
routed columns to the south side of the Chicka- 
hominy. Though forming part of the reserve 
of Jackson's army, Lawton's brigade was in the 
thickest of the fight, and fearfully cut up. The 
battle of Malvern Hill, which followed and 
ended the "Seven days' fight," was a great 
artillery duel, and perhaps the most terrible of 
the sanguinary conflicts which took place on the 
lines around Richmond, and when, at its close, 
McClellan's magnificent army had been driven 
from their strongholds and put to flight, Law- 
ton's brigade, which had borne the brunt of the 
battle, was the furthest advanced of the Confed- 
erate columns. Colonel J. M. Smith, after- 
wards Governor of Georgia, was very severely 
wounded in this battle. His brigade partici- 
pated with Stonewall Jackson's army in the 
battles of Slaughter Mountain, Bristow's Station, 
and the three days' fight of the Second Ma- 
nassas, perhaps the most brilliant victory of the 
war. During the first hour of the first day 
General Ewell was shot down, subsequently 
losing his leg, and General Law ton succeeded 
him in the command of his division. Lawton's 
brigade was engaged from the very beginning, 
and occupied a very prominent place, holding the 
line of an unfinished railroad as a natural fortifi- 
cation, and contributed materially to the victori- 
ous result. Then followed the 'battle of Chan- 
tilly, the last blow struck before entering Mary- 
land, in which only Jackson's forces, forming 
one flank of Lee's army, were engaged. The 
battle was fought in the midst of a drenching 
storm, driving directly in the faces of the South- 
ern troops, and during the greater portion of 
the time General Law-ton was the ranking officer 
in the field under fire. On the Federal side the 
division commanded by General Stevens, a 



classmate of General Lawton's at West Point, 
was driven back with the loss of its Ger.eral, 
and General Kearney was killed while recon- 
noitring. General Lawton participated in the 
taking of Harper's Ferry, and then in the battle 
of Sharpsburg, where according to General Jack- 
son's official report " the carnage on both sides 
was terrible." General Lawton commanded on 
the extreme left of the line, a little to the left 
of Sharpsburg; the lines had been taken the 
night previous, and the battle was raging furi- 
ously by the time the sun was up. About two 
hours afterwards the disproportion of the attack- 
ing Federal force to the Confederate was so 
great that the lines were being broken all to 
pieces, and while riding along encouraging the 
men with promised succor, General Lawton 
was struck by a minie ball which passed through 
his right leg into his horse, killing the animal 
instantly. He was carried from the field across 
the Potomac, and six weeks afterwards under- 
went a serious surgical operation in Richmond. 
At Sharpsburg, Lawton's brigade suffered fear- 
fully, and Colonel G. B. Douglass, who had been 
placed by General Lawton in command, was 
killed. General Lawton was disabled for seven 
months by his wound, and General Early suc- 
ceeded him in the command of his division. On 
returning to duty, in August, 1863, he was made 
Quartermaster-General, and was thus on duty 
at Richmond until the termination of the war. 
His department gave employment to one hun- 
dred and fifty clerks ; the offices occupied almost 
an entire block of buildings fronting the Capitol 
Square in Richmond, and were burnt down at 
the evacuation of the city with all the records. 
The position of Quartermaster-General was a 
most trying and onerous one, necessitating one 
perpetual struggle to supply the army with pro- 
visions, brought by land transportation from 
points in Georgia and Alabama, five hundred to 
eight hundred miles distant, and it may be 
safely asserted that no such arduous enterprise 
was ever before attempted in the history of war- 
fare. At the fall of Richmond, General Law- 
ton left, with General Breckinridge and others, 
and finally reached Washington, Ga., where 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



73 



he remained for a time with some relations, and 
was there arrested and paroled. In December, 
1865, he returned to Savannah, where he recom- 
menced the practice of law, and shortly after- 
wards became associated with his present part- 
ners, General H. R. Jackson and Major W. S. 
Basinger. 

On the 12th of October, 1870, General Lee 
died in Lexington, Va., and on the day set apart 
for his obsequies, October 15 th, business was en- 
tirely suspended in Savannah amid marks of the 
profoundest sorrow and respect. His first service 
as Lieutenant of Engineers had been in Savan- 
nah, where he had contracted early friendships 
and social relations, and in the last year of his 
life he had sought its climate, in the hope of re- 
storing his waning health. A public meeting 
was held, at which a committee was appointed 
to fix a date, make suitable arrangements, and 
select a proper person to deliver a eulogy on the 
life, character and services of the deceased Gen- 
eral. 

On the day selected, Thursday, January 19th, 
1871, the anniversary of the birthday of General 
Lee, all business resorts were deserted, the streets 
draped in mourning, and a procession of 2,000 
persons, consisting of the municipal officers, the 
clergy, the foreign consuls, the officers, soldiers 
and seamen of the late Confederate army and 
navy, members of the various societies, etc., etc., 
and the orator, General A. R. Lawton, escorted 
by the Committee of Arrangements, headed by 
General Joseph E. Johnston, then a resident of 
Savannah, assisted by General Mansfield Lovell, 
General H. R. Jackson, General J. F. Gilmer, 
General A. H. Colquitt, General Joseph Fine- 
gan, General R. H. Anderson, General W. W. 
Kirkland, General G. M. Sorrel, and General 
H. C. Wayne, marched through the streets to 
Forsyth Park, where the largest gathering ever 
before known in Savannah was assembled, num- 
bering fully 8,000 people. General A. R. Law- 
ton was selected by the authorities as the orator 
of the day, and pronounced an eloquent and 
touching eulogy on the life, character and ser- 
vices of General Robert E. Lee, which kept the 
immense audience, though excited and deeply 



moved, silent and spell-bound to its close. Af- 
ter a graphic account of the leading incidents in 
his career, he said : 

"Exacting the most rigid discharge of duty 
from the highest, he was kind, encouraging and 
ever tender to the humblest, who performed well 
the part assigned him ; the grand central - figure 
of all, he was sublime in dignity and simplicity; 
secure in the love of those who went cheering at 
his bidding to do or to die, he needed none of 
that ostentatious display so often craved even by 
the most distinguished military chieftains. While 
in careful preservation of all the resources at 
command, in preparations for the hour of trial, 
in the prompt handling of troops in action — 
changing plans to meet the exigencies of the 
hour — he exhibited that capacity which won for 
him the confidence and the love of the army he 
commanded, of the government and people he 
served, and accomplished results which, by the 
confession of all military critics, and the impul- 
sive voice of the civilized world, placed him in 
the first rank among the great captains of mod- 
ern times .... and it would do injustice to his 
memory to leave out that portion of his life de- 
voted to the simple and useful duties of a teacher 
of youth, because the acknowledgment of this 
service is necessary to the completeness of his 
fame. In no position did he more signally de- 
velop the great qualities that adorned his life. 
Indeed some of the very greatest can only be 
fully understood in the light of the serene pa- 
tience and the calm and quiet consecration of 
his latest years. . . . We accept General Lee as 
the highest type of the Southern gentleman; that 
combination of courage, courtesy and culture, of 
truth and kindliness, with a scrupulous and sen- 
sitive regard for the rights and feelings of 
others. . . . We honor and revere him as the in- 
carnation of duty, of dignity, temperance and 
virtue, of unaffected modesty and genuine hu- 
mility, of industry, patience, fortitude and resig- 
nation — a character so grand in its proportions, 
so complete in all its details, so exquisite in its 
finish, that when we contemplate it, like the 
visitor who first looks on the Cathedral of St. 
Peter's, its very perfection, symmetry and com- 



74 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



pleteness obscure our capacity to appreciate its 
vastness. We love and honor him because he 
lived not for himself but for others, and illus- 
trated by his entire life that complete self-abne- 
gation, only witnessed in the best days of the 
Roman Republic, and in a venal epoch, which 
discards as unworthy all that does not minister 
to material interests, we are once more thrilled 
with the blessed realization that man was indeed 
made but 'a little lower than the angels.' 

" ' Never a hand waved sword from stain so free, 
Nor purer sword led a braver band ; 
Nor a braver bled for a brighter land, 
Nor a brighter land had a cause so grand; 
Nor a cause a chief like Lee.' 

"But his name and fame will survive while 
history lasts; even though a stricken and im- 
poverished people shall not be able to respond in 
monumental marble to the prompting of their 
hearts and raise to him a fitting shaft, whose top 
shall pierce the skies. The voice of the civilized 
world has been heard, and the universal feeling 
is in accord with sentiments promptly uttered by 
a conspicuous organ of public opinion in Eng- 
land : 'A country which has given birth to him 
and those who followed him may look the 
chivalry of Europe in the face without shame ; 
for the fatherlands of Sydney and Bayard never 
produced a more noble soldier, gentleman, 
Christian, than Robert E. Lee.' " 

In 1875 General Lawton was elected to the 
State House of Representatives, and in 1876 
was elector for the State at large and President 
of the Electoral College of Georgia. In 1877 
he was a member and Vice-President of the 
Constitutional Convention that framed the 
present Constitution of Georgia, of which ex- 
Governor C. J. Jenkins was President. Among 
the numerous prominent legal cases in which 
General Lawton has appeared may be mentioned 
the contests between the State of Georgia and 
the Railroads, known as the Railroad tax cases. 
The State of Georgia vs. Central Railroad and 
Banking Company was first tried in the Superior 
and Supreme Courts of the State, and afterwards 
carried to the United States Supreme Court : a 



charter was granted by the Legislature of Geor- 
gia to the Central Railroad to construct a rail- 
road from Savannah to Macon, which should 
not be subjected to a higher tax than one-half 
of one per cent, upon its net income. The 
Macon and Western Railroad was incorporated 
by the Legislature of Georgia to build a road 
from Macon to Atlanta, but with no exemption 
or limit to taxation. In 1872 the Legislature 
authorized the union and consolidation of these 
two railroads under the name and charter of the 
first. Such was the legal status of the Central 
Railroad and Banking Company when, in Feb- 
ruary, 1874, the Legislature passed an act to 
amend the tax laws of the State relating to rail- 
roads which required from each railroad com- 
pany an annual return of the value of its prop- 
erty to be taxed as other property of the people 
of the State. In accordance with this act, the 
Comptroller-General assessed a tax of $46,034.81 
against the Central Company, and issued an 
edict to collect it. The company then paid the 
tax of one-half of one per cent, required by the 
prior law, and instituted proceedings to resist 
the exaction of the remainder of the tax on the 
ground that by its charter it was not subject to 
be taxed at a higher rate. It was contended on 
behalf of the State that the charter granted was 
surrendered by the union and consolidation of 
the two companies. Mr. Jeremiah S. Black, 
Mr. David Dudley Field, and General A. R. 
Lawton appeared for the company, and the At- 
torney-General of Georgia, Mr. N. J. Ham- 
mond, and General Robert Toombs for the 
State. The court held that the charter granted 
to the Central Railroad was not surrendered 
under the act for the union and consolidation 
of the companies, and that, therefore, it was not 
in the power of the State to impose upon it a 
greater penalty than one-half of one per cent, 
per annum ; but the Macon and Western Rail- 
road, having no contract with the State limiting 
its liability to taxation, had no claim to exemp- 
tion, and, as that property by articles of union 
amounted to one-third of the entire property, 
the amalgamated company to that extent only 
was liable to a inciter rate than one-half of one 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



75 



per cent. In June, 1877, General Lawton ap- 
peared in support of the will in the celebrated 
Telfair will case, in which 1750,000 was in- 
volved. 

He is a Trustee of the University of Georgia, 
and Attorney for the Central Railroad of Geor- 
gia, the largest railroad in the State. 

He married, in November, 1845, Sarah Alex- 
ander, daughter of Adam L. Alexander, of 
Washington, Ga., and has three children; his 
son, Alexander R. Lawton, is at present a stu- 
dent at the University of Virginia, and one of 
his daughters is the wife of Mr. MacKall, of 
Baltimore, Md. 



EX-GOVERNOR KEMPER. 

Virginia. 

AMES LAWSON KEMPER was born 
in Madison county, Va., in 1824, and 

Conti- 
in the 




descended from 
nental ancestors 



British and 
who settled 



a colony of Virginia in 1700. He took 
the degree of Master of Arts at Washington Col- 
lege, and studied law in the office of George W. 
Summers, Esq., at Charleston, Kanawha county, 
then in the Old Dominion, now in West Vir- 
ginia. In 1847 he was commissioned Captain 
in the Volunteer army by President Polk, and 
joined General Taylor's army of occupation in 
Mexico, just after the battle of Buena Vista, thus 
seeing no active service in that war. 

General Kemper was for ten years a member 
of the Virginia Legislature, for two years the 
Speaker of the House of Delegates, and for a 
number of years Chairman of the Committee on 
Military Affairs. He was also President of the 
Board of Visitors of the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute. On the 2d of May, 1861, he was com- 
missioned by the State Convention, on the nomi- 
nation of Governor Letcher, Colonel of Virginia 
Volunteers, and assigned to the command of the 
Seventh Regiment of Infantry, which command 
he assumed at Manassas, the regiment being 
eight hundred and fifty strong. He was first 
engaged with his regiment at the first battle of 
Manassas, July 2ist, 1861, where his regiment 



was temporarily incorporated in a brigade com- 
manded by Colonel, afterwards General Jubal 
A. Early, and aided in striking the final blow 
on the extreme left of the Federal line, which 
immediately preceded the retreat and final rout 
of the Union army. Three days after the battle 
of Manassas his regiment was assigned to a 
brigade commanded by General Longstreet. 
This brigade was subsequently given General 
A. P. Hill, and under him, Colonel Kemper, 
with his Seventh Regiment, was in the hottest 
of the battle of Williamsburg, May 5th, 1862. 
Immediately after this he was made comman- 
dant of the brigade, which had been successively 
commanded by Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. 
Hill, and, commanding it, participated in the 
first day's fight at Seven Pines, May 31st, 1862, 
and the seven days' fighting around Richmond 
in the same year. He acted as Major-General 
at the second battle of Manassas. He com- 
manded his own brigade at South Mountain and 
Sharpsburg. After the Maryland campaign his 
brigade was assigned to Pickett's Division of 
Virginians. 

General Kemper was detailed from his divi- 
sion. in 1863 and sent to operate near Newbern, 
N. C, where he rendered good service to the 
Confederate cause, though there were no pitched 
battles fought. He rejoined Pickett in front of 
Suffolk, Va., and marched with him into Penn- 
sylvania. General Kemper was desperately 
wounded by leading his men in that terrific 
charge which gave Pickett's division a perma- 
nent place in history and yet ended so disas- 
trously. He was brought off the field, but sub- 
sequently fell a prisoner into the hands of the 
Union army. After three months imprison- 
ment, and when it seemed unlikely that he 
would recover, he was exchanged for Brigadier- 
General Graham, United States Army. 

The wound received at Gettysburg, though 
not fatal, as many expected, compelled him to 
retire from field-service. He was then placed 
in charge of the local forces of Virginia at Rich- 
mond. In June, 1864, he was commissioned 
Major-General, and so remained until the close 
of the war. 



7 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



The late Colonel Walter Harrison, Inspector- ' 
General of Pickett's division, says in his 
"Pickett's Men," that General Kemper "was 
an excellent officer in the field ; with all the 
courage and pure chivalry of a volunteer patriot 
righting for his country's honor and independ- 
ence, he combined the solid qualities and 
sound judgment of a practical statesman. In 
battle or council he was an officer of superior 
capacity." 

The war over, General Kemper returned to his 
former place of residence in Madison county, 
and sought to repair his fortune and by example 
to encourage his neighbors to renew their strug- 
gle for life and prosperity. He cultivated his 
land, and recommenced the practice of the law 
and was honored with many important cases; 
but in that section of the State, so sadly devas- 
tated by the contending armies, the people were 
poor and the pecuniary reward of his practice, 
though sufficient, was by no means grand. 

Upon the formation of the Conservative 
party — a union of all the elements opposed to 
the Republicans — General Kemper, as duty and 
sympathy commanded, joined the Conservative 
ranks, and with voice and pen, and every effort, 
did his part. He was an elector for the State 
at large on the Greeley ticket in 1872, and can- 
vassed the State with such satisfaction to the 
people that in the year following he was nomi- 
nated for Governor over Colonel (now United 
States Senator) R. E. Withers, and was elected 
by about twenty-seven thousand majority over 
the Republican candidate, Colonel (now United 
States Judge) Robert W. Hughes. 

Governor Kemper entered upon the duties of 
his high and responsible office on the 1st of 
January, 1874, for a term of four years. At 
that time the conflicts between the two races 
were of frequent occurrence in some States (not 
in Virginia), and the whole country was seriously 
considering how best to restore quiet and good 
order. 

In his inaugural message Governor Kempersaid : 
" We intend to perform the task assigned us by 
Providence by scrupulously guarding the newly 
acquired rights of the colored man : by affording 



him liberal facilities for education and inciting 
him to use them ; by developing his best quali- 
ties and capacities, and interesting him in the 
preservation of order and the enforcement of 
justice ; by shielding him against devices of the 
vicious and thriftless; by habitually according 
him the kindness, forbearance and sympathy 
which his comparative dependence and weakness 
invite, and by cultivating such relations of ac- 
tive co-operation and mutual trust and common 
interest between the races as will combine both 
in recovering the general prosperity and make 
each an indispensable instrumentality for that 
end." 

His messages to the General Assembly re- 
commended legislation for the encouragement 
of immigration ; for retrenchment and reform in 
the administration of the government of the 
State ; for the better support of the public 
educational institutions and asylums; for the 
remodelling of the tobacco inspection laws and 
the improvement of the criminal laws. On the 
occasion of the sending of Federal' troops to 
Petersburg at the Presidential election in 1876, 
both by proclamation and message he denounced 
it as being what he regarded as an unjustifiable 
interference with popular rights in Virginia. 

On the subject of the public debt he said to 
the General Assembly at the session of 1876-7 : 

"As nothing can so quickly revive the gen- 
eral business and productive energies of the peo- 
ple, so nothing can give the State so much 
ability to pay full interest on the debt as meas- 
ures resolutely providing the means for its pay- 
ment. Procrastination serves but to deepen the 
existing depression, to swell the arrears of inter- 
est and to lessen the ability to pay. To begin 
paying renews confidence, converts unproduc- 
tive into productive values, gives a fresh impulse 
to all enterprises and so increases the ability to 
continue paying. If the requirements of honor 
did not override all other considerations in 
dealing with this subject, as they do; and if it 
were possible to escape the payment of any of 
our obligations, as it is not ; the experiment of 
repudiating any, even the least of them, would 
entail losses upon the people many times greater 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



77 



in amount than the entire debt itself. Unques- 
tionably, if expediency alone be consulted, the 
cheapest and easiest, as well as the only way to 
get rid of debt, is to pay it off. 

"But higher considerations than such as cal- 
culate material and pecuniary advantages will 
control the action of Virginia upon this ques- 
tion. It is enough that the preservation of the 
unblemished honor of the government and the 
people demands the speediest possible redemp- 
tion of every obligation." 

All of Governor Kemper's State papers are 
marked by vigor and felicity of expression, and 
his recommendations have nearly always been 
practical, and wherever adopted by the General 
Assembly have been productive of good. As a 
speaker he stands deservedly high. He is a 
lawyer of soundness and experience, and his 
whole record, as soldier, legislator, lawyer and 
Governor, has been unstained by impure pur- 
poses or questionable acts, and those who may 
at times differ with him on subjects of public 
policy admit his ability and honesty. 



GENERAL HENRY HETH. 

Virginia. 

i{fENRY HETH was born in Chesterfield 
county, Va., December 16th, 1825. 
He is a son of John Heth, of the 
Black Heth estate, in that county, a 
Colonel in the volunteer force of Vir- 
ginia, and previously an officer in the United 
States Navy, serving in the war of 181 2, and 
being captured with Decatur and taken to Ber- 
muda, whence he escaped in an open boat with 
two of his comrades. An uncle of his. Colonel 
William Heth, participated in the battle of 
Quebec under General Montgomery, in which he 
was taken prisoner, and served with distinction 
throughout the Revolutionary war, having been 
connected with the staff of General Washington. 
In 1843 h e entered the United States Military 
Academy, at West Point, from which he gradu- 
ated in 1847, when he was appointed Second 
Lieutenant in the Sixth Infantry, joining his 




regiment at the City of Mexico in January, 
1848, and remaining with it there until June 
of that year, peace meanwhile having been con- 
cluded. His next important service was on the 
Indian frontier, where he speedily distinguished 
himself, doing duty at Fort Atkinson, Fort 
Kearney, and Fort Laramie, taking a conspicu- 
ous part in most of the Indian fights in that re- 
gion, and winning, by his conduct in the field 
and out of it, the first lieutenancy in June, 1853, 
the adjutancy in November, 1854, and, finally, a 
captaincy in the Tenth Infantry in March, 1855. 
Shortly after this last promotion, a company was 
detached from his regiment, mounted as cavalry, 
and led by him in the Sioux expedition under 
General Harney, which ended in the victory of 
Bluewater, September 3d, 1855. In 1857 he 
was assigned to special duty in preparing target 
practice for the army, but the following year 
joined his regiment in Utah, where he served 
until the latter part of i860, when, the civil war 
looming in the near distance, he returned to Vir- 
ginia on leave of absence, and, ultimately deter- 
mining to : 'go with his State," resigned his 
commission, April 18th, 1861, and entered the 
service of Virginia. His reputation as a soldier 
brought him prompt recognition by the military 
leaders of the South, and he first organized the 
Quartermaster's Department in Richmond, and 
was then -appointed a Colonel in the Confederate 
army, in which capacity he organized General 
Floyd's command at Wytheville, Va., and par- 
ticipated in the battle of Carnifex Ferry, con- 
ducting General Floyd's retreat from Cotton 
Hill. In 1862 he was made a Brigadier-General, 
and assigned to the command of West Virginia, 
fighting in May of that year the battle of Giles' 
Court-House, in which he was opposed to Colo- 
nel R. B. Hayes, now President, and later in the 
same month fighting the battle of Louisburg. 
In the following June he joined General Kirby 
Smith at Knoxville, Tenn., and accompanied 
him in his invasion of Kentucky, two months 
later, being intrusted, when the invading force 
reached the interior of the "dark and bloody 
ground," with the charge of an expedition 
intended to capture Cincinnati, an enterprise 



78 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



from which he was withheld at the last moment 
by positive orders. In February, 1863, he 
joined the Army of Northern Virginia, and was 
assigned to the command of Field's brigade, 
whose commander had been wounded, taking 
part in the battle of Chancellorsville, at which 
General A. P. Hill was wounded on the first 
day, and opening the battle on the second day, 
when he was wounded himself, casualties noticed 
with regret by General Lee in his despatch an- 
nouncing the engagement to the Confederate 
President. He was now promoted to the rank 
of Major-General, and placed in command of a 
division in the Third Corps, commanded by 
General A. P. Hill, presently signalizing his 
promotion by opening the battle of Gettysburg, 
having discovered, while on an expedition from 
Cashtown to Gettysburg in quest of a supply of 
shoes, the advance of General Meade's army 
under General Reynolds, whom he attacked, 
losing in twenty-five minutes twenty-seven hun- 
dred men out of seven thousand, and fifty per 
cent, of his officers, besides being himself se- 
verely wounded. He was subsequently engaged 
in the affair at Falling Waters during the retire- 
ment of General Lee's army to the south bank 
of the Potomac. On the 14th of the ensuing 
October he attacked with two brigades General 
Meade's Second Corps, under General Warren, 
fighting the battle of Bristoe's Station, after 
which he went into winter quarters at Orange 
Court-House. As this place is in the neighbor- 
hood of Chancellorsville and Wilderness, he 
maybe said to have wintered on the battle-field, 
ready for a renewal of the conflict with the re- 
turn of spring. At all events the conflict was 
renewed at that time, and on the 5 th of May, 
1864, he commanded the advance division of 
Hill's corps, marching by the Orange Court- 
House plank-road to resist General Grant's 
flank movement across the Rapidan, and replied 
successfully for three hours to the attacks of 
General Hancock from the Brock road, partici- 
pating likewise in the battles of Spottsylvania 
Court-House on the 10th, nth and 12th of the 
same month, and a few days afterwards engaging 
General Warren at NowelJ's Turn-out. On the 



3d of June he took part in the battle of Bethesda 
Church, at which the Federal troops were com- 
manded by General Burnside, and was in the 
lines around Petersburg during the siege, from 
July, 1864, to April 3d, 1865, occupying, through 
September, October and November of the former 
year the extreme right of General Lee's lines. 
He was engaged in the battles on the Weldon 
road, August 18th, 19th and 20th, 1864; in the 
battle of Reem's Station, where he captured two 
thousand men, nine pieces of cannon, and many 
flags ; in the battle of Burgess's Mill, in Novem- 
ber, 1864, and in all the struggles on the right, 
following from the extension of General Grant's 
left; and, lastly, commanded at Burgess's Mill, 
April 3d, 1865, when General Grant broke 
through General Lee's lines, his final service 
being to conduct his division on the retreat to 
Appomattox Court-House, where he surrendered 
with General Lee's army on the 9th of April. 
The war being ended, he remained in Virginia, 
turning his attention at first to mining, which he 
prosecuted for some two years, and then estab- 
lished himself as an insurance agent in Rich- 
mond, Va., in which business he has since con- 
tinued there, representing at present the Wash- 
ington Insurance Company of New York. He 
married Miss Selden, daughter of Miles Selden, 
a planter of Norwood, Powhatan county, Va., 
and a member of an old Virginia family, who 
have resided on the James river for a period of 
two centuries. Mrs. Heth is a cousin of Dr. 
William Selden, of Norfolk, and a niece of Mr. 
John Selden, who own the well-known West- 
over estate on the James river. 



GENERAL J. HAGOOD. 

South Carolina. 

OHNSON HAGOOD was born February 

^■jjl 21st, 1829, in Barnwell county, S. C. 

Q:^J) The Hagoods are of English extraction 

■^yip and settled originally in Virginia, and 

prior to the Revolutionary war removed 

to the Ninety-six District, S. C. Early in the 

present century, Johnson Hagood, the grand- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEM OF THE SOUTH. 



79 



father of the subject of this sketch, after whom 
he was named, a prominent lawyer in Charles- 
ton, settled in Barnwell county, and his son, 
Dr. James O. Hagood, was, previous to the 
civil war, a successful planter and stock-raiser, 
and a standard authority on the latter subject 
in his native county. He practised his profes- 
sion for more than fifty years, and by his uni- 
form success and sound judgment gained the 
respect and esteem of the large and intelligent 
community among whom he resides. Johnson 
Hagood' s early education was received in Au- 
gusta, Ga., and at sixteen years of age he entered 
the Citadel, the State Military Academy at 
Charleston, S. C, where he graduated in No- 
vember, 1847, with the highest honors of his 
class ; among his classmates there were Rev. 
S. B. Jones, D. D , of South Carolina ; Edgar 
Herriot, now a well-known engineer in Louisi- 
ana ; Colonel Lithgoe, who was killed during 
the war, and others. After graduation he 
studied law under Hon. Edmund Bellinger, a 
distinguished lawyer of his day, and in 1850 
was admitted to the Bar. In 185 1 he was 
appointed by Governor John H. Means Deputy 
Adjutant-General of Militia, one portion of his 
duties consisting of drilling the militia at its 
various encampments scattered over the State. 
In December, 185 1, he was elected by the State 
Legislature Commissioner in Equity for Barn- 
well District, a lucrative and important office, 
which he held until the outbreak of hostilities 
in 1861, when he resigned it to join the army. 
So little idea was entertained at the time of the 
duration of the coming struggle, that on tender- 
ing his resignation he was urged to withhold it, 
on the plea that in a month or two all would be 
over and he re.urned from his military duties, 
and that it was a pity to give up so good a posi- 
tion for so short a time. During the ten years 
prior to the war he was also engaged in culti- 
vating his plantation in his native county, and 
when the State seceded was Brigadier-General 
of Militia. He was at once elected Colonel of 
the First South Carolina Volunteers, and took 
part in the bombardment of Fort Sumter under 
General Beauregard, in April, 1S61. He was 



then transferred to the Confederate States Army, 
st !11 retaining his rank as Colonel. He was 
present at the first battle of Manassas (Bull 
Run). Returning to South Carolina his regi- 
ment was engaged in the operations around 
Charleston and at the battle of Secessionville, in 
June, 1862. Immediately after that battle he 
was promoted by President Davis to the rank of 
Brigadier-General, serving on the coast of South 
Carolina until May, 1864, and being engaged 
in the defence of Charleston during General 
Gilmore's siege of that city, and in the defence 
of Fort Wagner and the operations on James 
Island. In May, 1864, he was with his com- 
mand withdrawn from Charleston and ordered 
to Petersburg, Va., where he arrived May 7th, 
and at Walthall Junction, a few miles beyond, 
met the advanced forces of General B. F. But- 
ler, consisting of five brigades. With fifteen 
hundred of his men, supported by eleven hun- 
dred men of Johnson's Tennessee Brigade, he 
repulsed them in the open field, many of his 
most gallant field and staff officers being killed 
and wounded. This gave time for the concen- 
tration of troops from the southward for the de- 
fence of Petersburg against Butler's advance. 
And the ladies of Petersburg, in recognition of 
the gallantry of the fifteen hundred men engaged, 
met and resolved to present a flag to the brigade. 
He served under General Beauregard at Peters- 
burg and afterwards in Hoke's Division at 
Drewry's Bluff against Butler and in the opera- 
tions in the Bermuda Hundreds. During the 
latter period he was instrumental in the erection 
of a battery at Howlett's House on the James 
river which, sweeping Butler's transports in the 
bend of the river, caused him to conceive the 
idea of cutting the famous Dutch Gap canal to 
escape, in his further advance up the river, the 
fire of this battery. The first pieces with which 
the battery was mounted were two twenty-pound 
Parrotts captured by Hagood's brigade at the 
battle of Drewry's Bluff a few days before, and 
were manned by a detachment from Palmer's 
company of the Twenty-Seventh South Caro- 
lina Regiment. ■ 
After General Beauregard had succeeded in 



8o 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



"bottling up" Butler in the Peninsula of Ber- 
muda Hundred, Hagcod's brigade, with the 
division to which it was attached, was ordered 
to join General Lee. It reached him at Cold 
Harbor, just prior to the battle of June, 1S64, 
in which it was actively engaged. At the siege 
of Petersburg which ensued, this brigade served 
in the trenches at one time sixty-seven days 
without relief, and in that period was reduced 
by casualties and disease from twenty-three 
hundred men to seven hundred present for duty. 
At one time the next officer in rank to the briga- 
dier present was a captain ; and four of the five 
regiments were commanded by lieutenants. At 
a later period, during the month of August, in 
the fighting on the Welden Road, General Ha- 
good became the hero of as daring and gallant 
an exploit as is to be found in the history of the 
war. His command had been ordered to charge 
the enemy, and when the line of their works 
had been reached, some two hundred of his men 
having got into a re-entering angle where they 
were exposed to a severe cross-fire, became con- 
fused, and a mounted officer of the enemy 
galloping out of a sally-port seized the colors of 
the Twenty-Seventh Regiment and called upon 
them to surrender. Several officers and men 
prepared to do so, but had not been carried in 
when General Hagood, whose horse had been 
previously shot, proceeding towards them, called 
upon his men to shoot the officer; in the confu- 
sion they seemed bewildered and failed to do so. 
The General having now come up to the spot, 
demanded the colors, telling the officer he was 
free to return to his troops. Instead of doing so 
he commenced arguing about the desperate posi- 
tion of the small band of Confederates, and Gen- 
eral Hagood, cutting him short, demanded a di- 
rect answer, which, being in the negative, he was 
shot from his horse, and the General seizing the 
colors and handing them to his orderly, sprang 
into the saddle of his adversary, and succeeded 
in withdrawing his men with as little loss as 
could have been expected from the terrific fire 
to which they were exposed in retiring. 

General Beauregard, in forwarding a statement 
of this affair to General Lee, remarked : " Such an 



act of gallantry as herein described, and of devo- 
tion to one's flag, reflects the highest credit on 
the officer who performs it, and should be held 
up to the army as worthy of imitation under 
similar circumstances. Brigadier-General Ha- 
good is a brave and meritorious officer, who has 
distinguished himself already at Battery Wagner 
and Drewry's Bluff, and participated actively in 
the battles of Ware Bottom Church, Cold Har- 
bor ard Petersburg, June 16th and 17th, 1864, 
and I respectfully recommend him for promotion 
at the earliest opportunity." General Hagood 
bore generous testimony to the good conduct 
of his orderly, private J. D. Stoney, in this 
affair, and recommended him for a commission, 
which he afterwards obtained. Shortly before 
Christmas, 1864, he was ordered to reinforce the 
troops in North Carolina, and was engaged in 
the operations around Wilmington, and after- 
wards in General Hoke's division at the battles 
of Kinston and Bentonville, at the latter Gen- 
eral J. E. Johnston having 18,000 men only, 
while General Sherman's column numbered 
35,000, which on the second day was increased 
to 70,00c; and the necessity of parting with so 
large a number of veteran troops (7,500 infantry, 
of which Hagood's brigade formed a part, and 
Hampton's cavalry) at this juncture was the ulti- 
mate cause of the abandonment of Petersburg 
by General Lee. Retiring before overwhelming 
numbers his command surrendered with Gen- 
eral Johnston at Greensboro, N. C. General 
Hagood's brigade entered the war 4,500 strong, 
and at its conclusion only 499 veterans remained, 
including himself and his staff, of that gallant 
band. At the termination of hostilities he 
returned to the active supervision of his planta- 
tion, and has since devoted his attention to the 
best methods of cultivation and to stock-raising, 
in which he has been remarkably successful. In 
1871 the burden of taxation under the profligate 
and iniquitous carpet-bag rule having become 
well nigh intolerable, he became a delegate to 
the State Tax-payers' Convention held at Colum- 
bia, and composed of the most intelligent and 
responsible men in the State. The convention 
was called to consider the enormous anil increas- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ing State debt, and to ascertain, if possible, its 
actual amount, and what portion of it had been 
legally contracted. An entirely false statement 
of the State's liabilities was placed before them 
by Governor R. K. Scott and the State officers, 
and a false set of books were produced professing 
to give correct details. Upon the evidence sub- 
mitted they declared a certain portion of the 
debt valid and binding, and the rest fraudulent. 
It appeared that the taxable value of the property 
of the State in 1S60 was $ 400,000,00c, and the 
taxes were then only $392,000; in 1871 the tax- 
able property had been reduced to $184,000,000, 
while the taxes had increased to $2,000,000, so 
that while the property had been reduced to less 
than half its former value, the taxes had been 
increased five hundred per cent.; and this curious 
anomaly existed, without a parallel in represent- 
ative government, that those who imposed the 
taxes did not pay them, and those who paid them 
had no voice in imposing them. Property was 
assessed without being seen, at an average of at 
least twice, and sometimes even five times its 
value, from which no redress could be obtained 
from the tax commissioners. The State debt 
had been increased from, in round numbers, 
$5,400,000 in 1867, to $20,000,000 in 1871 by 
the issue of bonds, the existence of a large por- 
tion of which had, previous to the investigations 
of this convention, been unsuspected and kept 
studiously concealed by the guilty officials. The 
Legislature had relinquished to private individ- 
uals, without consideration, its lien upon the 
Blue Ridge Railroad, and in the case of the 
Greenville and Columbia Railroad, whose stock 
had been purchased by a disreputable ring from 
private individuals at a nominal price, they 
authorized the sale of the stock held by the State 
in the same company to the ring, of which high 
State officials were members, and the money to 
make these purchases was raised by hypothe- 
cating State bonds, so that the corporation 
passed into the hands of private individuals, who 
never paid one cent out of their own pockets for 
the stock. The Republicans themselves after- 
wards repudiated a large portion of the debt, and 
the Court of Claims is now passing upon the 
6 



validity of the unfunded portion of the debt. 
On the 20th of February, 1874, General Hagood 
was appointed one of a committee of five, of 
which Mr. C. R. Miles was chairman, to inves- 
tigate the condition and administration of the 
assets of the Bank of the State of South Caro- 
lina, who, while laboring under great difficulties 
from inability to send for persons and papers, 
or to compel the attendance of witnesses, and 
from the refusal of the then Receiver to furnish 
any information whatever, reported that the 
funds of the bank had been loaned to favored 
individuals on totally inadequate security, that 
repeated changes had been made in the Re- 
ceivership for no other purpose apparently than 
to enable each successive one to receive the 
commission, and that borrowers of the currency 
assets of the bank had been allowed to repay 
their loans in the greatly depreciated bills of the 
bank, at par. 

Another flagrant piece of fraud connected 
with the State Bank, which, however, did not 
come within the scope of the Committee's re- 
port, was that at the end of a year and a half of 
the widest publicity given to an order notifying 
holders of the bills of the bank to present them, 
something less than $500,000 had been so pre- 
sented. The Legislature voted to issue State 
bonds to redeem the bills, and appointed, a leg- 
islative committee to count them. This com- 
mittee reported that they had found $1,258,550 
in notes, and in spite of the fact that less than 
$500,000 could be found previously after eighteen 
months' vigorous search, passed an act author- 
izing the issue of bonds for $1,258,550. Bonds 
were printed and issued by the Executive De- 
partment for this specific purpose, of the face 
value of $1,590,000, but in whose hands the 
balance of $331,450 remained it was impos- 
sible to discover. In 1876 General Hagood was 
nominated on the Democratic ticket for Comp- 
troller-General, and by his patient, prudent and 
courageous course during the excited campaign 
that followed, contributed largely to secure the 
great moral triumph of law and order and the 
downfall of the corrupt radical rule in the 
"Palmetto State." His management as county 



32 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



chairman of the campaign in Barnwell was per- 
fect in its organization and such as to gain the 
confidence of all moderate Republicans as well 
as Democrats. The colored voters flocked in 
large numbers to the Democratic standard and 
joined the Democratic clubs, and although 
hitherto there had been a Republican majority 
of 1800, almost wholly colored, the county was 
carried by a majority of 1 100 for the Democratic 
ticket. Of the negroes, at least a third voted 
the Hampton ticket, while another third ab- 
stained from voting at all, leaving only one- 
third who still supported the existing govern- 
ment. Only seven white men in the county 
voted the Republican ticket. Wherever Repub- 
lican meetings were held, the Democratic lead- 
ers claimed and insisted on their right to speak 
and refute the calumnies of their rivals, and in- 
vited the opposite party on every occasion to 
exercise similar privileges at their own meet- 
ings. Ex-Governor Chamberlain was again and 
again invited and urged to meet Governor 
Hampton, so that each might have the oppor- 
tunity to answer and if possible refute his oppo- 
nent. The radicals were, however, quite un- 
prepared for these open and straightforward 
tactics, and Governor Chamberlain, though 
promising repeatedly to do so, never once had 
the courage to stand the test ; it was the first 
campaign in which the negroes had heard the 
truth spoken, and the failure of their quasi 
champions to stand the test undoubtedly gained 
numbers of colored votes for the Hampton 
ticket. Two thousand mounted men in red 
shirts, the Democratic uniform, escorted Gov- 
ernor Hampton through Barnwell county, camp- 
ing from time to time at the various points 
where he stopped to speak, and the enthusiasm 
of all classes was unexampled in the history of 
the State. During the time of the Ellenton 
riots, General Hagood was placed by the Re- 
publican Judge Wiggin in command of the armed 
posse to repress the disturbance. And during 
the uncertain and perilous time between the 
election, in November, 1876, and the recogni- 
tion of the Hampton Government by President 
Hayes, when any moment might have precipi- 



tated a collision between the rival parties, 
Governor Hampton called only two of the State 
officers to his regular assistance, Hagood and 
Attorney-General Conner; the former acting 
both as Comptroller and Treasurer. It was 
largely through his influence that over a thou- 
sand of the negroes of his county at this time 
united in the voluntary contribution by the 
citizens of the State of one-tenth of the taxes 
they had paid the previous year to the support 
of Hampton's Government before it had been 
formally recognized by President Hayes. In 
May, 1877, he formally took possession of his 
office in the capitol, and has since so thoroughly 
organized and systematized his department that 
it has become quite a model of its kind ; every- 
thing has his personal supervision, and he is 
distinguished especially for his strict execution 
of the law. The Comptroller's office is perhaps 
the most important of all the State offices; it is 
the auditing office, and no moneys can be paid 
by the Treasurer without warrants from the 
Comptroller, who is responsible for their legal- 
ity; he supervises the collection of taxes and 
conducts the insurance business of the State ; 
he has the supervision of the phosphate interests 
of the State, now becoming a most important 
and lucrative source of revenue, and has to re- 
port upon the condition of the chartered com- 
panies and whether they are working in the 
interest of the State; in fact, the whole financial 
interests of the State are administered through 
the Comptroller's office, and in General Hagood 
have found an officer peculiarly adapted by 
nature and acquirements to efficiently conduct 
its intricate operations. He has always taken 
a great interest in agriculture, and in April, 
1S69, he was elected the first President, since 
the civil war, of the South Carolina Agricultural 
and Mechanical Society, holding that office for 
four years, but has since declined re-election ; 
he has been unusually successful as a planter, 
paying great attention to the judicious use of 
manure and fertilizers, and his sound common 
sense and methodical system have enabled him 
! to utilize to the fullest extent the freed labor. 
Many of his former slaves are still employed by 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



83 



him, and as he wisely adopts the plan of paying 
wages in money, he is able to exact the fullest 
amount of work with the greatest satisfaction to 
his hands. Few planters are as familiar as 
General Hagood with the details of plantation 
work, and his close personal attention and thor- 
ough system of supervision of every detail, enable 
him to secure the most profitable results. The 
stock used on the plantation is chiefly bred by 
himself, and his thorough-breds give him the 
opportunity of occasionally indulging his taste 
for racing, besides forming a considerable source 
of revenue in the sale of some of the youngsters 
not required for his own use. He is an accom- 
plished horseman, and never so much at home 
as when in the saddle. He is Chairman of the 
Board of Visitors of the State Military School, 
at Charleston, which is now in course of re- 
organization. General Hagood is a gentle- 
• man of somewhat reserved manners and modest, 
retiring disposition, but of sound judgment and 
strong common sense united to a warm, gen- 
erous heart. He has gained the respect and 
esteem of all parties in his official position, and 
his warm personal friends bear witness to his 
private worth, and should his services be de- 
manded for the highest honors in the gift of the 
people, no man in South Carolina would be 
better entitled to such a reward for his services 
in the cause of law, order and pure government. 
He married, November, 1854, Miss Eloise B. 
Butler, daughter of Judge A. P. Butler, for- 
merly United States Senator for South Caro- 
lina, of whom the present United States Senator, 
M. C. Butler, is the nephew. He has one son, 
Pickens B. Hagood, at present a student at the 
Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Va. 




country, formed a part of the original settlement 
in North Carolina known as the " Waxhaw Set- 
tlement," which derived its name from the fact 
that it was once the seat of the " Waxhaw tribe 
of Indians," being the same section to which 
the father of Andrew Jackson emigrated with 
his family in 1765. The Wallaces subsequently 
moved from the "Waxhaw Settlement" to 
Mecklenburg county, N. C, thence into Ten- 
nessee, in which section they were among the 
first settlers. William Wallace, the grandfather 
of Campbell Wallace, took active part in the 
Revolutionary War, and was one of the first two 
magistrates commissioned for the Tennessee 
Territory, General James White, father of the 
distinguished statesman, Hugh Lawson White, 
being the other. 

Among the expedients adopted by Congress 
to lighten the burden of public indebtedness 
incurred by the General Government in prose- 
cuting the War of Independence was a recom- 
mendation, to such of the States as owned vacant 
or unoccupied lands, to cede such lands to the 
United States, so that the joint fund created by 
the sale of these lands could be applied to the 
liquidation of the common debt. North Caro- 
lina was one of those States which owned a vast 
amount of unappropriated land in the western 
portion of her territory, and, agreeing to the 
recommendation of Congress, ceded to the 
General Government lands which embraced the 
territory now constituting a large part of the 
State of Tennessee. 

A portion of the inhabitants of the section 
ceded to the General Government, desiring to 
resent what they considered a neglect or dis- 
regard of their interest on the part of the State 
of North Carolina in agreeing to the recommen- 
dation of Congress, met in convention, framed 
a constitution, and organized what was desig- 
nated the "State of Frankland," by electing 
John Sevier Governor. In this revolt against 
the authority of North Carolina, William Wal- 
lace, the grandfather, and Jesse Wallace, the 
father of Campbell Wallace, were with the 
Seviers actively engaged, in opposition to other 
terians, and, after emigration to this I settlers led by the Tiptons, who approved the 



MAJOR CAMPBELL WALLACE. 

Georgia. 

'AMPBELL WALLACE was born in 
Sevier county, Tenn., on December 
7th, 1806. The paternal ancestors of 
Campbell Wallace were Scotch Presby- 



8 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



action of the State in ceding the lands. This 
movement to establish the State of Frankland 
was suppressed by the troops of the general 
government, and those engaged in the revolt 
returned to their allegiance to North Carolina. 

The mother of Campbell Wallace, Martha 
George, was a member of an old Quaker family 
of Welsh descent, who, when Martha was quite 
a child, moved from the place of her birth, 
Reading, Pa., to Tennessee. After the marriage 
of Martha George with Jesse Wallace, she 
united with the Presbyterians. Martha Wallace 
died at the age of seventy-eight, having borne 
eleven children, of whom Campbell Wallace was 
next to the youngest, and is now the only sur- 
vivor. Jesse Wallace lived to the ripe old age 
of eighty-eight years. 

At an early age Campbell Wallace removed 
with his parents into Blount county, Tenn., and, 
when fourteen years old, was placed in the mer- 
cantile house of Charles McClung & Sons, of 
Knoxville, where he remained for two years, at 
the expiration of which time he was called home 
on account of the advanced years of his father 
and mother who required his constant care. He 
remained at home until the year 1832, when he 
returned to Knoxville and entered as a partner 
in the house of McClung & Sons, in which he 
had previously served as a store-boy. At the 
age of eighteen years, Campbell Wallace ac- 
quired the title of Major, by which he is so 
familiarly known throughout the States of Ten- 
nessee, Georgia, and Alabama, having, in the year 
1824, been elected to the rank of Major in the 
State Militia. Though having received but a 
limited common-school education, Major Wal- 
lace pursued a most prosperous commercial 
career, extending from 1832 to 1853. During 
his mercantile life he was elected a Director of 
the Union Bank of Tennessee, Trustee of the 
East Tennessee University, and Trustee of the 
East Tennessee Female Institute ; no better evi- 
dence of the high estimation in which Major 
Wallace was held by the public can be given 
than the simple statement of the fact, that he 
was elected to these positions of honor and trust 
as successor to Judge Hugh Lawson White, who 



was probably the most distinguished public man 
of his day in the State of Tennessee. In 185 1 
Campbell Wallace became one of the Trustees 
of the Tennessee Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb, located at Knoxville. At this time this 
Institution was much embarrassed from the fact 
that the funds provided by the State were insuffi- 
cient to both support the Institution and complete 
the necessary buildings. The Institution was re- 
lieved of this embarrassment by closing the 
school and devoting all funds received to the 
completion of the main building. In carrying 
out this plan of relief, Major Wallace served as 
one of the building committee, and the subse- 
quent usefulness of the Institution was, in a great 
measure, due to the business tact and energy 
displayed by him in giving his personal atten- 
tion to every detail of the work. In 1853, at 
the urgent solicitation of many friends and great 
personal sacrifice, he retired from a most profit- 
able mercantile business to accept the position 
of President of the East Tennessee and Georgia 
Railroad. The road had been broken down 
financially, and the well-known executive ability 
of Major Wallace was relied on to overcome the 
results of this mismanagement. Under the en- 
ergetic administration of Major Wallace, the 
road was reorganized and completed, and the 
line extended from Cleveland to Chattanooga, 
which extension, though opposed by many 
prominent stockholders, has proven to be the 
most prosperous section of the road. 

In 1S61, a short time before President Lin- 
coln issued his proclamation calling for seventy- 
five thousand volunteers for service against the 
seceded States, Major Wallace was detailed by 
the railroads composing the line from New 
Orleans to New York city, to proceed to that 
city and reorganize the line. On arriving at 
Washington City, he was confidentially informed 
that the proclamation of the President had been 
telegraphed to the Governors of all the States, 
and advised to go no farther north, but return 
home. He determined, however, to perform 
the duty to which he was assigned at all hazards, 
and proceeded to New York city, where he 
arrived during the intense excitement caused by 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



85 



the presence of the Seventh Massachusetts regi- 
ment then on its way to Baltimore, and the 
arrival of Major Anderson and his command 
from Fort Sumter. 

Having fulfilled the mission on which he was 
sent to New York, he left that city and returned 
to Knoxville — the return trip south being made 
at great personal risk of being arrested by the 
Federal authorities. The experiences and obser- 
vations of Major Wallace while north convinced 
him that "coercion of the seceded States" had 
been fully determined on by the President and 
Cabinet, and that this policy for a restoration of 
the Union would be sustained by the people of 
the States north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers. 
His judgment being convinced that the impend- 
ing struggle would be fierce, bloody and pro- 
tracted, he at once, on his return to Knoxville, 
true to the traditions of his ancestors and in- 
stincts of his manhood, determined to cast his 
lot with the South, and devote all of his energies 
to the service of the cause he conscientiously and 
devotedly espoused. On reaching Knoxville, he 
immediately sent his eldest son to Montgomery 
to notify the Confederate authorities that all 
necessary arrangements had been completed for 
the transportation of troops by rail from the 
south and southwest to Richmond. 

At this time the differences in political senti- 
ment between citizens of East Tennessee was so 
bitter, that it was thought imminently dangerous 
to attempt the transportation of troops through 
that section. With this fact in view, Governor 
Harris, then Governor of Tennessee, telegraphed 
Major Wallace, asking if he could transport 
Duncan's battalion through East Tennessee. 
The prompt and characteristic reply was, "Yes, 
or die on the track 1 " Duncan and his men 
went through safely. From this time until East 
Tennessee was abandoned by the Confederates, 
the demand on the energies and resources of 
Major Wallace was incessant and exhaustive, 
and the capacity of the road under his manage- 
ment was taxed to its utmost in furnishing trans- 
portation for troops and munitions of war. The 
fact that on the retreat of General Bragg from 
Kentucky, Major Wallace transported 60,000 



troops from Knoxville to Bridgeport in ten 
days, g^ives the best evidence of the perfect 
organization and resources of the East Tennessee 
and Georgia Railroad, which road, under the 
management of Major Wallace, transported more 
troops during the war than any other road in the 
South, and so untiring was the vigilance of 
Campbell Wallace that this extraordinary duty 
was performed with the loss of only three en- 
gines and forty cars, destroyed to prevent their 
capture by Federal cavalry under General Wilder. 

In September, 1863, East Tennessee having 
become untenable for the Confederates, under 
the direction of Major Wallace all the rolling 
stock and equipment of the East Tennessee and 
Georgia Railroad was transferred to Georgia, 
and head-quarters of the road established at Au- 
gusta, where, under the supervision of Campbell 
Wallace, the engines and cars were employed in 
transporting supplies to the army via Columbia 
and Charlotte, and cotton to Wilmington for 
export on government account. This service 
was performed to the entire satisfaction of the 
authorities up to a short time before the close of 
the war, when the rolling stock controlled by 
Major Wallace was removed from Augusta, under 
the following circumstances: After Sherman had 
penetrated middle Georgia on his march to the 
sea, Augusta being threatened, the General in 
command issued orders that nothing should be 
moved from the city without special permit, and 
all cotton then in the city should be stacked in 
the streets and fired in case of an attack, so as 
to prevent it from falling into the hands of the 
enemy. Major AVallace, foreseeing the general 
destruction which must have followed such ac- 
tion, determined to save his rolling stock at all 
hazards, and after ascertaining that the Georgia 
Railroad in the rear of Sherman was clear, at 
midnight, without the knowledge of the military 
authorities, removed from Augusta fifteen en- 
gines and one hundred cars to stations along the 
line of the Georgia road. This equipment, at 
the close of the war, was turned over to the East 
Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. 

While rendering service to the Confederacy as 
a transporter of troops and munitions, Major 



86 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Wallace had often to exert the force of an iron 
will in conflicts with inexperienced ofRcejs who, 
"clothed with a little brief authority," imagined 
that their rank not only gave them control of 
troops, but all railroad officials and employes 
with whom they came in contact. Major Wal- 
lace sensibly felt the responsibility of his posi- 
tion, and never hesitated to disobey orders when 
he foresaw that obedience would unnecessarily 
subject his employes and the troops being 
Tinsported to loss of life by collision or other 
railroad accidents. At the close of the war 
Major Wallace remained in Georgia, and when 
residing at Athens, received a pardon from 
President Johnson, who was an old and intimate 
friend. 

From Athens, Ga., Major Wallace moved with 
his second son, Thomas L. Wallace, to Barton 
county, and commenced farming. In the spring 
of 1866, Governor Charles J. Jenkins, who had 
been elected Governor of Georgia, tendered the 
position of Superintendent of the State or West- 
ern and Atlantic Railroad to Major Wallace. 
He accepted the position, and immediately 
went to work to reorganize and rebuild the road, 
which, having been the line of Sherman's march 
from Chattanooga to Atlanta, was in a most dilap- 
idated condition from one end to the other — 
track, bridges and depots had all been destroyed 
by both Federal. and Confederate. Major Wal- 
lace placed the road in order, and under his 
administration it added much to the income of 
the State. During the time that General Meade 
was in command of the Department of Georgia, 
and previous to the removal from office of Gov- 
ernor Jenkins by the Federal authorities, Major 
Wallace, occupying as he did the important 
position of Superintendent of the State road, 
was necessarily thrown in close contact with 
both General Meade and the Governor, and his 
relations with both these officials were of the 
most cordial character. 

After the removal of Governor Jenkins and 
the appointment of General Ruger, Provisional 
Governor of Georgia, Major Wallace, at the 
urgent request of both General "Meade and Gov- 
ernor Jenkins, retained his position as super- 



intendent of the State road, and rendered the 
people of Georgia much service in softening 
considerably the roughness of reconstruction. 
In 1868, after the election of Rufus B. Bullock, 
Governor of Georgia, Major Wallace resigned 
his position as superintendent of the State 
road, and returned to his home at Marietta, 
Ga. In 1S69, as general manager of the 
firm of Sam Tate and Associates, Major Wal- 
lace entered into a contract for building the 
South and North Alabama Railroad, from Mont- 
gomery to Decatur, Ala. The entire man- 
agement of this work was intrusted to Major 
Wallace by his associates. The difficulties, 
both financial and physical, attending this 
great work, demanded upon the part of the Gen- 
eral Manager the exercise of tact, energy and 
perseverance in the highest degree : the road 
was completed to the satisfaction of all parties 
interested. In constructing the South and North 
Alabama Railroad, Major Wallace had the 
honor of being the first man who ever crossed 
the Alabama river with a locomotive. While 
engaged in building this road from Montgom- 
ery to Decatur, he was called to the Presidency 
of the Northeastern Railroad, in Georgia, but 
did not accept the position. In the year 1870 
Campbell Wallace was elected President of the 
Georgia Western Railroad, a projected line from 
Atlanta westward through the coal fields and 
iron deposits of Alabama, to make connection 
with the Louisville and Great Southern Rail- 
road at Birmingham, Ala. He accepted the posi- 
tion and moved to Atlanta. This enterprise 
was under the control of the City Council of 
Atlanta, and though considered then, and now, 
of vital importance to the development of the 
manufacturing interests of Atlanta, was from 
want of funds abandoned, after grading and 
masonry had been completed for about thirty 
miles, at an expense of about §300,000. So soon 
as Major Wallace found that the enterprise 
would not be sustained by the city, he retired 
from the presidency. On severing his connec- 
tion with the Georgia Western road. Major Wal- 
lace determined to retire from active business 
and seek the recovery of his physical strength, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



87 



which had been overtaxed by the constant strain 
required in supervising the details of railroad 
management and construction, but at the earnest 
solicitations of many friends, he was persuaded 
to accept the position of President of the State 
National Bank of Atlanta. Finding it impos- 
sible to make a success of the institution, as a 
National Bank, he withdrew the issue, obtained 
a charter from the State, and changed the State 
National to the Merchants' Bank of Atlanta, 
which under his management has been a success. 
The fact that the average deposits of this insti- 
tution have increased ninefold since Major Wal- 
lace took charge of its affairs is the best ev idence 
of the confidence of the public in his financial 
ability and integrity. So great and general is 
this confidence that we are safe in asserting that 
if the Merchants' Bank under a State charter 
were a bank .of issue, its bills endorsed by 
Campbell Wallace, President, would pass in 
Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee at par with 
legal tenders. For a number of years Major 
Wallace was President of the Benevolent Home, 
of Atlanta, in which position he did much 
good by placing the institution in a condition 
to relieve the suffering poor. Campbell Wallace 
is a devoted and leading member of the Pres- 
byterian church, of which he has been a ruling 
elder for fifty years. Though a strict keeper of 
the ordinances of the church, Major Wallace took 
strong ground in opposition to the Rev. Dr. Left- 
wich in his crusade against Deacon Frank E. 
Block, of the Atlanta Central Presbyterian 
Church, who was indefinitely suspended from 
church communion for permitting social dancing 
at his residence. Major Wallace contended that 
the act of the session, in suspending the deacon, 
was not in accordance with any church law, he 
was active in urging appeals from one church 
court to another, and his views in the case were 
fully sustained, not only by the Synod of Geor- 
gia, but the General Assembly of the Presby- 
terian Church, which convened -in Louisville, 
Ky., in May, 1879. 

In May, 1836, Ca.npbell Wallace was married 
to Susan E. Lyon, daughter of Captain William 
Lyon, of "Lyon's View," a beautiful estate on 



the Tennessee river, five miles south of Knox- 
ville. The immediate family of Major and Mrs. 
Wallace consists of two sons and four daughters. 
Thomas L. Wallace, his second son, died four 
years since, from the effects of exposure in ser- 
vice during the war. His eldest son, Charles 
B. Wallace, is general agent for the railroads 
coming into Atlanta. The third and youngest 
son is Campbell Wallace, jr., now living on the 
old homestead in Barton county. Tne eldest 
daughter, Mrs. McPherson, is the widow of 
Rufus M. McPherson, formerly a merchant of 
Tennessee. The second daughter, Mrs. Mynatt, 
is the wife of Hon. P. L. Mynatt, a prominent 
lawyer of Atlanta and member of the Legisla- 
ture. The third daughter, Mrs. Anderson, is 
the wife of R. A. Anderson, Esq., General 
Freight Agent of the Western and Atlantic Rail- 
road. The youngest daughter is the wife of 
Charles J. Martin, Esq., a merchant in Chatta- 
nooga, Tenn. 

During the past month, October, 1879, Major 
Wallace received a most honorable recognition 
of his ability and experience as a railroad mana- 
ger, by being appointed, without solicitation on 
his part, a member of the Railroad Commission, 
established by the last Legislature to control the 
railroad transportation of the State. Tnis 
appointment has been approved, not only by 
roads interested, but by every class of business 
men throughout the State, all feeling a perfect 
confidence that, with Major Wallace in the 
commission, every interest will be protected. 
Descended from a hardy and independent race, 
Major Wallace, at this time (November, 1879), 
though seventy-three years old, is far more 
active and vigorous than most men twenty-five 
years his junior. As president and manager of 
various railroads, during a period of twenty 
years, he displayed the highest qualifications; 
great powers of organization, fine executive 
ability and marked capacity for controlling men. 
His management of the railroads under his con- 
trol during the troublesome time of civil war 
was a marvel of business tact, knowledge of 
detail and tireless energy; master of every 
detail, thoroughly acquainted with the duty of 



88 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



each employe, personally known to them all, 
he took a strong interest in the individual wel- 
fare of each ; though strict and firm when occa- 
sion demanded, he was kindness personified, to 
every one who was deserving. His popularity 
with all classes of railroad operatives is to-day 
greater than that of any other man in the State. 
As a financier he has no superior in Georgia; 
his comprehensive grasp of all financial ques- 
tions seems intuitive. At one time he was 
spoken of as the probable Treasurer of the Con- 
federate States, in consequence of his pre-emi- 
nent financial ability. He is a staunch Jack- 
sonian Democrat, and without being a politician, 
has always exerted a marked influence in the 
political affairs of his section. Honorable, high- 
minded, conscientious and courageous, gifted 
with strong common sense, sound judgment, 
decision and firmness, together with a suavity 
of manner, none occupy a higher place in the 
confidence and esteem of the people of Georgia, 
Alabama and Tennessee, than Major Campbell 
Wallace. 

HON. J. P. KING. 
Georgia. 

JOHN PENDLETON KING was born 
41 April 3d, 1799, near Glasgow, Barron 
?|J county, Ky., and is the son of Francis 
Vfcp King, formerly of Virginia, and Mary 
*® Patrick, of South Carolina. Soon after 
his birth his father moved to Bedford county, 
Tenn., which being sparsely settled afforded few, 
if any, advantages for education. He remained 
in Tennessee until 1S15, when he left for Colum- 
bia county, Ga., where he had some relatives, 
and after a short sojourn there made his way to 
Augusta. In 181 7 he had saved, by persever- 
ing industry and thrift, sufficient to enter the 
Richmond Academy, one of the oldest institu- 
tions of learning in the United States, and by 
unremitting attention and assiduity was enabled 
to acquire a fair education in the short time he 
could afford to devote to study. Upon com- 
pleting his academic course he commenced the 
study of law in the office of Major Freeman 



Walker, then a leading lawyer and accomplished 
orator in Augusta, and was admitted to the Bar 
in August, 1S19, before he had achieved his 
majority. Major Walker showed himself a kind 
friend and patron to the rising young lawyer, 
and on his own election by the Legislature of 
Georgia to the United States Senate, transferred 
his practice to young King, and thus materially 
assisted in securing him the large and lucrative 
practice which his own ability- and scrupulous 
punctuality in meeting professional engagements 
was rapidly building up. Anxious to avail him- 
self of the advantages that Europe offered in 
extending and perfecting his education, in 
December, 1821, he sailed on his first trip to 
Europe, where he spent two years in extended 
observation of men and things, aided by judi- 
cious and comprehensive reading and attend- 
ance on lectures in Edinburgh and Paris. In 
the latter city he made the acquaintance of 
General Lafayette, then about to pay a visit to 
the United States, whither he had been invited 
by Congress. The United States Government 
had offered to send a vessel for the General's 
special use, but declining this he sailed for New 
York in the "Cadmus," a fine vessel of the 
mercantile line, in which Mr. King was also a 
passenger. 

Congress, then in session, made General 
Lafayette a grant of land in Louisiana, and 
after visiting Boston, New York, Washington 
and all the principal cities of the North, the 
General, in the fall of 1825, visited Augusta. 
Mr. King had preceded him, and being the only 
one in Augusta personally^acquainted with the 
General, met him at the steamboat-landing and 
accompanied him through the city, where he 
was received with high honors. From Augusta 
General Lafayette travelled by the tedious 
stage coaches of those days to Montgomery and 
New Orleans, passing through the country occu- 
pied by the Creek Indians, who turned out in 
his honor. 

The panic year of 1825 greatly increased 
litigation and enlarged the profits of his profes- 
sion, and after a few years successful practice he 
retired in 1829, to give his whole attention to 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



89 



his large esti.te and extensive private interests. 
Judge King, from first to last, while engaged in 
his profession, showed a striking aptitude for the 
law and its intricacies, and in the management 
of cases at once saw and seized the strong points : 
his mind was of that clear and analytical caste, 
and his reasoning powers so exact and incisive 
as eminently to fit him for the discussion of 
legal propositions. If he had adhered to the 
law, and his ambition had led him in the direc- 
tion of professional preferment, he could have 
reached and would have adorned the highest 
judicial positions in the land. In 1S30 he 
attended a convention called for the reform of 
the State constitution, in which the important 
question of the equalization of the representa- 
tion was strongly advocated by Judge King ; it 
was opposed, however, by so many local inter- 
ests that it failed to be ratified by the people. 
In 1833 he was chosen a member of the Consti- 
tutional Convention of Georgia of that year. In 
this body he greatly distinguished himself; he 
was a Jackson Democrat, and by his superior 
talents took the lead of that party in the con- 
vention. Before this his reputation had not 
extended beyond the limits of the county of 
Richmond, but by his debates in this convention 
and especially by his discussion with the late 
William H. Crawford (who was the Democratic 
Congress caucus candidate for President of the 
United States in 1824), he rose in one bound to 
the front rank of the ablest and most eloquent 
men in Georgia. In the winter of 1833 he went 
to Vicksburg, for the purpose of examining some 
inaccessible land in that neighborhood, in the 
title to which there was considerable complica- 
tion. In those anti-telegraph days news travelled 
slowly, and it was not until his arrival at New 
Orleans, on his way homeward, that he received 
intelligence that, without being a candidate, he 
had, in his absence, been elected to fill the 
vacancy in the United States Senate, occasioned 
by the resignation of the distinguished statesman, 
George M. Troup. It was a glowing compli- 
ment to Judge King's abilities for the Union 
Democratic party of Georgia to award him un- 
sought the successorship to sc gifted and accom- 



plished a gentleman as Governor Troup, but a 
still higher one when at the termination of the 
unexpired term of two years he was re-elected 
for a full term of six years longer. 

In those days the great intellectual gladiators 
were figuring upon the floor of the American 
Senate ; Calhoun, Webster, and Clay, Benton, 
Wight, Buchanan, Bayard, and Forsyth were 
there, and many grave questions were before the 
country demanding wise and patriotic solution. 
Andrew Jackson was President, of whom it was 
aptly said, "his every step was a contest, and 
every contest a victory;" his was an eventful 
administration, distinguished by the introduc- 
tion and fearless maintenance of bold, original 
policies that arrayed against him the concen- 
trated opposition of the money power and the 
bitterness of disappointed ambition. It was at 
a time like this, when not only the questions of 
currency and finance springing out of the action 
in regard to the National Bank, but also the 
questions arising upon the disposition to be made 
of the public lands, the removal, of the Indians 
across the Mississippi, internal improvements by 
the general government, the tariff, the French 
Spoliation bill, the reception of abolition peti- 
tions, and many other important questions were 
demanding settlement, that Judge King entered 
the United States Senate and took and main- 
tained a high position. Speaking but seldom, 
he took part in the debates upon most of these 
grave issues, and at once won position in that 
body as a man of fine abilities and culture, and 
as an inductive reasoner and logical debater 
whose powers were of a superior order. As evi- 
dence of this, many compliments from Senators 
and discussions in which he took part with the 
ablest in that body might be adduced, but it 
will suffice to mention that Thomas H. Benton, 
the great Missouri Senator, himself one of the 
first men in the country, in his speech on the 
French Spoliation bill, took occasion to specially 
compliment the speech of Judge King on the 
same subject, and, in his "Thirty Years in the 
United States Senate," pays a further compli- 
ment to Judge King by reproducing in it a short 
debate between him and Mr. Calhoun. Mr. 



9° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Calhoun had obtained the appointment of a 
special committee to which was referred so much 
of the President's message as related to the mail 
transmission of incendiary publications, of which 
Mr. Calhoun was Chairman and Mr. King one 
of the members. A bill and report were brought 
in by the committee — the'jiait subjecting to pen- 
alties any postmaster who should knowingly reV* 
ceive and put into the mail any publication or 
picture touching the subject of slavery, etc. 
When the report was read a motion was made 
to print five thousand extra copies of it, and 
Judge King, in protesting against some of the 
views advanced by Mr. Calhoun in this report, 
said, " That positions had been assumed and 
principles insisted upon by Mr. Calhoun, not 
only inconsistent with the bill reported, but, he 
thought, inconsistent with the Union itself, and 
which, if established and carried into practice, 
would hastily end in its dissolution." It was 
no ordinary compliment for Mr. Calhoun to 
have suggested his name first on that special 
committee : lesser men than Judge King might 
have been so flattered by it as not to have been 
conscious of a subornation of their own views 
and convictions on grave questions raised in 
committee to the masterly power and will of 
this great statesman. Not so with Judge King: 
nothing could bend or swerve his mental inde- 
pendence, and the debate, which was participated 
in by Clay, Webster, and others, will show with 
what vigor and ability he boldly dissented from 
the great Carolinian. In his speech on the 
bill to prohibit the sales of the public lands 
except to actual settlers, one of the ablest de- 
livered on that question, he said : " He viewed 
the bill as establishing a system of partiality, 
plunder, and perfidy — a system in which those 
who had the least merit would make the most 
profitable speculations. If the bill passed at all, 
he was indifferent as to the details of it ; per- 
haps it would be better for the country if it 
should pass in the worst shape in which it had 
been presented. It was not surprising that it 
should be popular with those who were to be so 
greatly benefited by it, but that those whose 
constituents were to be plundered should tamely 



and quietly submit was not and ought not to be 
expected. But he was much mistaken if this 
measure could be protected from that discontent 
and indignation with which the great majority 
of the United States always visit a course of in- 
justice and oppression. They should recollect 
that -the public lands were public treasure, and 
.belonged as much to the wrtSie people of the 
United States as the money in the treasury, 
should be protected precisely in the same way, 
and should be distributed among the States with 
as much equality as possible. A very large por- 
tion of this property was acquired by the com- 
mon blood and treasure of the old thirteen 
States, and the other portion was purchased 
with the money of the whole derived from taxa- 
tion on the consumption of the country, the con- 
sumers being principally in the old States." 
Judge King has been from his youth up an em- 
inently practical man. One short sentence 
uttered by him in passing while making in the 
Senate a speech of much power on the currency 
question plainly but fully illustrates his character 
in this particular. Said he: " We should never 
resort to theory when we have the lights of ex- 
perience to guide us." Judge King, though 
always a thorough Union Democrat, did not at 
all times approve and indorse every feature of 
party policy put forth by those who claimed to 
be the leaders ; and he would thus sometimes 
subject himself to severe criticism and censure 
from the merely partisan press and politicians. 
Even in those days of high party excitement and 
passion he differed from some of the measures 
of the Jackson administration, for then, as ever 
through his whole life, he was opposed to what 
he considered extremes, and always had the 
fearless independent manhood and honesty to 
oppose them, even when advocated by his 
warmest political friends. But the jars and 
wrangling and constant excitement incident to 
political life were unsuited to his tastes and 
habits of thought, and some of the party press 
of the State having censured unjustly, as he 
thought, a very notable speech he made against 
some of the leading measures of Mr. Van 
Buren's administration, he, in iSjy promptly 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



9i 



resigned the trust committed to his charge and 
retired into private life. No like abandonment 
of high political position from personal disgust 
has occurred in the history of the United States. 
The monetary affairs of the country through 
reckless legislation were at this time in a most 
disordered condition, and immense financial 
misery existed everywhere. Commercial enter- 
prises in Georgia, as elsewhere, were completely 
paralyzed, and, the affairs of the Georgia Rail- 
road being in an embarrassed state, he was 
pressed by the shareholders to assume its man- 
agement. This road was commenced in 1835, 
and was projected to connect Augusta with At- 
lanta by way of Madison, with a branch line to 
Athens. When Judge King assumed the man- 
agement, in 1S42, it was only completed as far 
as Madison, and had at one time been quite 
prosperous, but through bad management had 
become involved. Having agreed to take 
charge of its affairs for a period of two years he 
placed his own private fortune and credit at the 
command of the company, and ere long, by 
good management and close economy, put it on 
a safe and remunerative footing. He completed 
the main line to Atlanta and the branch to 
Athens without calling upon the stockholders 
for a dollar, and the earnings of the road in- 
creased to such an extent under his judicious 
management that, besides paying for many years 
a dividend of seven per cent., he had, at "the 
beginning of the war in 1861, a surplus of some- 
thing like $2, 000,000 in hand. During the 
war, although a large business was done, nearly 
the whole outfit was either worn out or de- 
stroyed ; it was impossible to renew the tracks 
or rolling-stock as they became worn out, and 
depots, round-houses, machine-shops, bridges, 
and other works were either blown up or de- 
stroyed by Sherman's raiders, the loss aggregat- 
" ing fully $3,000,000. Of the fifty-two engines 
in good working order possessed by the com- 
pany previous to the war but twelve remained 
in running order at its close, and of the seven 
hundred and fifty cars in thorough repair at the 
beginning of the struggle but seventy remained 
capable of running, and those in very indifferent 



condition at the end. In spite of the utter de- 
struction of property and securities of all kinds 
in the South by the result of the war, Judge 
King was enabled by good management to 
realize about $1,000,000 out of the fragments 
' " the former surplus and to pay every outstand- 
ing bill of the corporation. After the surrender, 
business became very active for a while and the 
income correspondingly large, and, had it not 
been necessary to pay dividends to the stock- 
holders, many of whom were largely dependent 
on them for support, the road would soon have 
been renewed. As it was, however, the restora- 
tion was necessarily very gradual, and only re- 
cently has the read and outfit been put in as 
good a condition as before the war. The con- 
nection at Atlanta with the Air-line to Char- 
lotte, and the extension from Athens to Gaines- 
ville, on the Air-line, have been sources of 
weakness rather than strength to the Georgia 
Railroad; a portion of the stockholders strongly 
advocated these connections, against the opin- 
ion of Judge King, and the loss to the company 
through the diversion of traffic by these lines 
cannot have been less than $500,000. 

A few years ago a section of the stockholders 
became dissatisfied with Judge King's manage- 
ment, principally in consequence of his strong 
objection to paying dividends unless from the 
net earnings of the company; and, gathering 
strength from those who simply desired to use 
the road for stock-jobbing purposes, they suc- 
ceeded, in May, 1878, in defeating his re-elec- 
tion to the Presidency, and substituting for him 
General Alexander. The Georgia Railroad and 
its branches, with some of its connecting lines, 
mainly built by its aid, has opened up a large 
section of country and greatly added to the ma- 
terial wealth and business enterprise of both 
Augusta and Atlanta, as well as largely develop- 
ing the resources of the State at large. Under 
Judge King's management, notwithstanding the 
universal financial collapse of similar enterprises, 
it has maintained its high credit, and thus as- 
sisted in sustaining public confidence in railroad 
stock generally; at the present time it holds a 
higher ]»sition than any other railroad in Geor- 



02 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



gia. As an example of the value of its stock 
at different periods of its history, it may be in- 
teresting to note that when Judge King assumed 
the presidency, in 1842, the stock was as low as 
28; just previous to the war it was quoted at 
from 105 to no; after the surrender it had 
fallen to from 65 to 70; and the present market 
price is from 71 to 72. Banking privileges 
were granted by the State to the Georgia Rail- 
road ; previous to the war it was a bank of issue, 
but the present government tax of ten per cent, 
on the circulation of private banks effectually 
prevents all but national bank circulation. It 
has always had a large deposit and discount 
business, and from the status given it by the 
wealth and standing of its stockholders ranks 
probably higher than other banking institutions 
in the State of Georgia. 

Perceiving the absolute necessity of connect- 
ing the Georgia Railroad with the southwestern 
part of the State, Judge King took up the At- 
lanta and West Point Railroad, and by judicious 
management made it one of the most prosperous 
lines in the United States. Built entirely on a 
cash foundation, it has never borrowed a dollar, 
and, having more than doubled its capital, con- 
tinues to pay dividends of eight per cent, yearly. 
The stock is now above par, and the road has 
proved itself, under the direction of its Presi- 
dent, Judge King, one of the most profitable 
railroad enterprises in the country, though like 
other Southern roads it suffered considerable 
losses during the civil war. During the third 
of a century that he has been President of this 
company, Judge King has studiously abstained 
from politics, but in 1865 he was prevailed upon 
to take a seat in the Constitutional Convention 
of that year, where his sound judgment, patriot- 
ism and eminently practical wisdom largely in- 
fluenced its action. James Johnson, of Colum- 
bus, was then Provisional Governor of Georgia, 
under President Andrew Johnson's plan of re- 
construction, and all looked forward with con- 
fidence to the readmission of the Southern States 
to the Union on the known liberal terms of 
President Lincoln; but the disputes between 
President Johnson and Congress and his subse- 



quent impeachment defeated these moderate 
measures and rendered the work of the Conven- 
tion nugatory. Judge King was one of a few 
public-spirited citizens of the city of Augusta 
who projected the Augusta Canal, which was 
commenced in 1845, an ^ an influential stock- 
holder in the early days of the Augusta Factory. 
Commencing life poor and friendless, he has, 
by his own energy, integrity, physical and men- 
tal activity, and unswerving devotion to justice 
and right, attained the highest place in the con- 
fidence of his fellow-citizens, and might have 
won a still prouder niche in the temple cf politi- 
cal fame had not his tastes and inclinations 
drawn him from the political arena to the finan- 
cial world, where his remarkable abilities, both 
natural and acquired, could find fitting scope. 
A close student and a vigorous and forcible 
writer, he has from time to time contributed many 
able articles on important political crises to the 
journals of the day. Well versed in the public 
affairs of his own country, in which he is thor- 
oughly abreast of the times, his intimate knowl- 
edge of political affairs in the old world is un- 
surpassed. To his high courage and indomitable 
will are allied many of the social virtues, and 
while ever a resolute antagonist, when occasion 
demanded, he has also been , the genial friend 
and warm sympathizer with human distress and 
suffering. Thousands can bear testimony to the 
generous aid which has never been withheld 
from the needy and deserving, and no man has 
more rigidly observed the divine injunction, 
"Let not thy left hand know what thy right 
hand doeth." He married, in 1842, Miss 
Woodward, daughter of a New York merchant, 
and has three children living. His eldest 
daughter, Mary L., married the Hon. Henry 
Wodehouse, a brother of the Earl of Kimberley, 
and at the time of his marriage Second Secretary 
of the British Legation at Paris, whence he was 
promoted to First Secretary of Legation at 
Athens, where he died in 1873. Luring his 
residence in Paris, in the stormy limes of the 
Commune, he was on intimate terms with Mr. 
Washburne, the American Minister to France, 
and afterwards took great pleasure in acknowl- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



93 



edging the kindness and assistance rendered to 
him by Mr. Washburne in the absence of the head 
of the British Legation. Miss Louisa King, his sec- 
ond daughter, is honored throughout Georgia for 
her humanity and benevolence in obtaining the 
enactment of a State law for the prevention of 
cruelty to animals, and for her successful organi- 
zation of the Widows' Home of Augusta ; and 
his son, Henry Barclay King, a graduate of the 
University of Oxford, owns a plantation and 
large stock-farm at Battle Creek, Tenn., known 
as the reservation of the old Indian chief Lowrey. 
Judge King's brother, Hugh King, is engaged 
in stock-raising at Pine Bluff, Ark. 



REV. ABRAHAM HOFMAN, D. D. 

Virginia. 

. to BRAHAM HOFMAN was born on the 

|7 20th of August, 1822, at Dittlofsrod, 

Bavaria, Germany 




His father was 
Moses Hofman, a merchant of Dittlofs- 
rod. He received his elementary edu- 
cation in his native town. In Gersfeld, Bavaria, 
he prepared himself for the university. In 1839 
he entered the junior class of the University of 
Wuerzburg, Bavaria, and graduated from the 
same in the year 1841. While at Wuerzburg 
he became a member of the Wuerzburg Musical 
Institute, of which Professor Froehlich, one of 
the most renowned musicians of his age, was 
director. 

In childhood Dr. Hofman developed a liking 
and talent for music. He has ever since de- 
lighted in it, and it has been the solace of many 
leisure hours. After leaving the university he 
became for three years and a half, an educator 
in the family of Mr. Wolf Kohn, of Werneck, 
Bavaria. In this family he spent some of the 
most happy years of his life. While making it 
his home in Mr. Kohn's family, he became ac- 
quainted with Miss Johanna Kleemann. His 
acquaintance ripened into friendship and affec- 
tion, until, in 1848, she became the wife of Dr.- 
Hofman. Four children, two sons and two 
daughters, all of whom are still living, were the 



fruit of this marriage. In 1855 he had to mourn 
the death of this much loved wife and devoted 
mother. 

In 1845 ne received and accepted a call to 
become pastor of the Jewish congregation of 
Limburg, now of Prussia. For twenty-one years 
he continued the esteemed and very successful 
pastor of this congregation. When he entered 
upon the pastorate of this congregation it had 
but twenty-five members; when he left it, it had 
over forty. The fiist sermon preached in this 
synagogue was preached by Dr. Hofman. Its 
first choir was also introduced by him. He also 
introduced the first choir into the congregation 
of the city of Diez. For his highly esteemed 
services he received from the Diez congregation 
a valuable silver cup. 

In 1 866 his Limburg congregation became so 
flourishing that they bought and entered into a 
new synagogue. In this year Limburg being 
added to Prussia, and all the physically sound 
young men of Prussia being required to enter 
the army, and Dr. Hofman being unwilling 
that his sons should do so, influenced also by 
some other reasons, he determined to come to 
the United States. Accordingly, in October, 
1S66, he resigned the pastorate of the Limburg 
congregation, and on the 27th of that month 
sailed from Bremen for New York, at which city, 
after a very pleasant voyage, he arrived on the 12 th 
of November, 1866. Immediately on reaching 
New York he met his old friend and university 
room-mate and classmate, Joseph Sachs. He 
immediately became a member of Mr. Sachs' 
family, and for ten months aided him in teach- 
ing in his boarding-school. Living in this 
family on the most friendly and affectionate 
footing, Dr. Hofman and his family spent ten 
very happy months. At the end of this time, 
without any previous knowledge on the part 
of Dr. Hofman, he received a call to become 
pastor of the Atas Jeschurun congregation, of 
Philadelphia, Pa. 

Of this call, coming so unexpectedly, he ac- 
cepted, and in September, 1867, he entered upon 
this pastorate, which he held for one year, at the 
end of which time he received and accepted the 



94 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



call of the Baltimore Hebrew congregation. 
When he had held this pastorate about five years, 
he was unanimously elected Superintendent of 
the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Baltimore. This 
position he held for about three years and a half 
to the entire satisfaction of the Board. During 
this time the Asylum was burned. From the fire 
Dr. Hofman and family barely escaped with 
their lives. The Doctor lost in the fire most of 
his worldly goods, including a library of nearly 
four hundred volumes. 

In July, 1876, unlooked for by him, he re- 
ceived and accepted a call to become pastor 
of the Bayth Ahabah congregation of Richmond. 
Of this congregation he is now the honored and 
loved minister. 

In 1 85 6 he married Zepora, daughter of Nathan 
Straus, of Dittlopsrod, Bavaria. From this union 
he has two daughters, both living. 

In 1 841 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
was conferred by his own Alma Mater, the 
University of Wuerzburg. 



GENERAL L. J. GARTRELL. 

Georgia. 

|UCIUS J. GARTRELL was born in 
Wilkes county, Ga., January 7th, 1821. 
The Gartrells are of Scotch extraction, 
and originally settled in Maryland. 
There was but one family of that name, 
and their descendants are now scattered over the 
South and West, while there are still some to be 
found in Maryland. Joseph Gartrell, grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, was a farmer, 
and removed in 1 783 from Maryland to Wilkes 
county, Ga., and his son also, Joseph Gartrell, 
was a large planter and merchant in that county. 
He married Elizabeth Boswell, daughter of Dr. 
Josiah Boswell, a physician and planter, who had 
removed from Maryland to Columbia county, 
Ga. Lucius J. Gartrell received his education at 
Randolph-Macon College, Va., from 1838 to 
1841, and at Franklin College, Athens, Ga., 




now the Georgia University, which he left after 
taking one course, being anxious to begin his 
career. 

Commencing the study of law in the office of 
Robert Toombs, at Washington, Ga., he was ad- 
mitted to the Bar at the Lincoln Superior Court 
in 1842, and having formed a co-partnership 
with Isaiah T. Irwin, a prominent member of the 
Bar in that section, commenced practice at 
Washington, in his native county. In 1843 ne 
was elected Solicitor-General of the Northern 
Judicial Circuit, holding that office for nearly 
four years, and shortly after his election entered 
into partnership with the Hon. Garnett Andrews, 
for many jears Judge of the Superior Court of 
the Northern Judicial Circuit. Resigning that 
offi:e in 1847, ne was shortly afterwards elected a 
member of the State Legislature from Wilkes 
county. He was re-elected in 1849, an d at the 
next session introduced the celebrated "South- 
ern rights resolutions," which embodied in a 
terse and vigorous form the doctrine of " States 
Rights" as held by the South, and the grounds 
upon which that section opposed the aggressive 
fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionists. Hav- 
ing served four years in the Georgia Legislature, 
during which he was a leading member of that 
body and instrumental in passing many impor- 
tant measures identified with the interests of the 
people of Georgia, he returned to the active 
practice of his profession in the Northern Circuit 
until 1854, when he removed to Atlanta. In 
1855 he took an active part in securing the elec- 
tion to Congress of the Hon. Hiram Warner 
from the Fourth Congressional District, and in 
the course of his thorough canvass of the State 
combated with all his energy the " Know No- 
thing " movement which threatened to sweep the 
country. He was among the first public speakers 
to take the stump against the doctrines of thrt 
party, and delivered his opening speech in July, 
1855, at Augusta. In 1856 he was an elector on 
the Buchanan and Breckinridge ticket. In 1857, 
Judge Warner declining re-election, Mr. Gartrell 
was returned to Congress by a large majority, and 
in 1859 was re-elected by a greatly increased ma- 
jority. He participated actively in the debates 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



95 



on all the important questions of that exciting 
period, remaining in Congress until Georgia 
withdrew from the Union. On the question of 
Southern rights he took a bold and decided 
stand, warning the people of the North that the 
South was firmly resolved to maintain her consti- 
tutional rights at all hazards. While in Congress 
he was appointed a member of the Committee on 
Elections and a Regent of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, and was universally regarded as one of 
the most prominent members of that memorable 
Congress. 

On the passage of the Georgia Ordinance of 
Secession, January 19th, 1S61, he withdrew 
from Congress with the entire Georgia delega- 
tion, with the exception of the Hon. Joshua 
Hill, who remained. When war became inevi- 
table he organized the Seventh Georgia Regi- 
ment, and was unanimously chosen its Colonel. 
Leaving Atlanta May 31st, 1861, he reported for 
duty with his regiment to President Davis at 
Richmond, to whom he delivered a message 
from Governor Brown, of Georgia, requesting 
the President, as the men were raw recruits, to 
allow them to remain in camp there a short time, 
in order to become properly disciplined and 
drilled. President Davis replied: "Colonel 
Gartrell, my experience teaches me that the 
best place to drill a regiment is in front of the 
enemy. You will report immediately to Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston at Harper's Ferry." 
Early in June they arrived at Harper's Ferry, 
and from thence moved to Winchester, Darks- 
ville and Manassas, arriving at the latter on the 
Saturday evening before the memorable first 
battle of Manassas, fought on Sunday, July 21st, 
1 86 1. He commanded in person the celebrated 
Seventh Georgia, their position being at the 
Henry House, and was side by side with Colo- 
nel Francis Bartow, of the Eighth Georgia, when 
he was mortally wounded, catching him in his 
arms as he fell from his horse, and ordering him 
to be carried to the rear, where he died in a few 
minutes. The Seventh was confronted and 
nearly surrounded by the Sixty-ninth New York, 
the Zouaves, and others, and it was a private of 
the Seventh who shot the Major of the Sixty- 



ninth as he was rallying his men to the charge. 
The fighting was at very close quarters, not more 
than eighty yards separating the combatants, 
and Colonel Gartrell, in order to protect as far 
as possible the lives of his men, gave the order, 
" Fall and load, and rise and fire at will," which 
his men understood perfectly, while the enemy 
were under the impression, from the number 
that fell as each file fired, that they had all but 
annihilated several regiments successively. The 
banner carried by this famous regiment was pre- 
sented to it before leaving Atlanta for the front 
by Miss Carrie Yancey, daughter of Colonel 
Benjamin C. Yancey, of Athens, Ga., and was 
known afterwards as the "riddled banner," 
from the immense number of bullet holes in the 
flag and staff. It was viewed by thousands after 
the battle as a curiosity. 

Colonel Gartrell' s son, Henry Clay Gartrell, 
a youth of sixteen years old, insisted on follow- 
ing his father to the war, and was killed in this 
battle. At the close of the day Colonel Gartrell, 
who had been thrown from his horse and stunned 
by the explosion of a shell, and reported dead in 
the early part of the battle, was met by General 
J. E. Johnston, who was surprised and delighted 
to find him alive, and by whom he was mentioned 
in his official report as having greatly distin- 
guished himself in the action. 

In October, 1861, while serving with his com- 
mand, he was elected almost unanimously as a 
member from the Fourth Congressional District 
of Georgia to the Confederate Congress, and re- 
signed his commission with the distinct under- 
standing that, should the war continue, he would 
only serve one term. He took his seat without 
returning home, and was present at the inaugu- 
ration of President Jefferson Davis, which took 
place at the capitol at Richmond, in the presence 
of an immense concourse of people. Mr. 
Bocock, of Virginia, was elected Speaker, and 
Colonel Gartrell appointed Chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee of the House of Represen- 
tatives, in which position he rendered valuable 
service to the Confederacy. At the expiration 
of his term he returned to the army, and was 
made Brigadier-General by President Davis, and 



9 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



organized four regiments of Georgia Reserves 
known as Gartrell's Brigade, the command of 
which he held until the close of the war. When 
Sherman was on his march from Atlanta to Sa- 
vannah, these Reserves were stationed at Au- 
gusta, which it was thought he would attempt to 
destroy, but when it was found he had passed by 
the city, General Gartrell was ordered by Gen- 
eral Bragg to report to General Hardee at Savan- 
nah. Arriving at Charleston, S. C, he was met 
by a telegram ordering him to take command of 
the works at Coosawhatchie, and hold in check 
General Hatch, who was seeking to join Sher- 
man, and thus cut off Hardee's retreat from 
Savannah. At Coosawhatchie, S. C, several 
engagements took place, with some as severe 
fighting as any that occurred during the war, 
and on the last of the four days General Gartrell 
was wounded, and sent back to Augusta. In 
1S63 he was solicited by a large party both in 
the army and in the State to allow himself to be 
nominated for Governor, but declined the honor 
on the ground that contentions for office in that 
hour of peril to the country would distract and 
divide the people. 

At the close of the war, all his property de- 
stroyed, he returned once more, with courage 
undaunted, to the practice of his profession in 
Atlanta, where he has remained ever since, con- 
ducting an extensive and successful business, and 
has gained the enviable reputation of being at 
the head of his profession as a criminal lawyer 
in the South. In 1S66 he was a candidate for 
United States Senator, and when within a few 
votes of election, withdrew for the sake of har- 
mony, in favor of the Hon. H. V. Johnson, who 
was elected. In 1870 he was prominently 
spoken of as a candidate for United States Sen- 
ator, but when it became known that A. H. 
Stephens desired the position, he declined to be- 
come a candidate in a manly and patriotic letter, 
which was highly appreciated throughout the 
South, and gained him hosts of friends. Mr. 
Stephens, however, was defeated by General 
J. B. Gordon for the Senatorship. 

In December, 1S73, General Gartrell's politi- 
cal disabilities were removed by Congress, and 



in 1877 he was elected a member of the Consti- 
tutional Convention of Georgia, in which he 
bore a very prominent part, being Chairman of 
the Committee on the Executive Department, 
and many of its provisions bear the impress of 
his clear judicial mind. General Gartrell has 
the largest practice in Georgia, both in common 
and criminal law. He was the leading counsel 
in the celebrated trials of Rufus P. Bullock, late 
Governor of Georgia, for crimes alleged to have 
been committed while he was in the Executive 
office, and for which he was tried a few years 
ago ; and he has appeared in hundreds of cases 
of homicide and other crimes. While no lawyer 
stands higher in Georgia in general practice, 
General Gartrell stands without a peer as a 
criminal advocate. Forcible in argument, solid 
in debate, he moves a jury with a strong mag- 
netic power that compels their sympathy, while 
his thorough knowledge of the technicalities of 
the law convinces their understanding. Quick 
to seize the salient points, and never at a loss to 
parry unexpected attacks from his opponent, his 
ability in the management of cases, the exami- 
nations of witnesses, and devotion to the inter- 
ests of his client, have gained him a reputation 
that few can equal in the South. Thoroughly 
identified, as he has always been, with the best 
elements in his native State as a legislator, a 
soldier and a citizen, it is not surprising that his 
great personal popularity among all classes should 
cause his name to be prominently mentioned as 
the choice of the people of Georgia for the next 
vacancy in the highest position in their gift — 
that of the chief executive officer. 

General Gartrell has been twice married : 
first on November 14th, 1841, to Louisiana 
Olivia Gideon, daughter of Francis Gideon, of 
Athens, Ga., by whom he had eight children, of 
whom two are now living — Francis Bartow Gar- 
trell, merchant, and Joseph E. Gartrell, attor- 
ney-at-law, both of Atlanta ; and second, on 
July 10th, 1S55, to Antoinette P. Burke, daugh- 
ter of Littleton L. Burke, of La Grange, Ga., 
by whom he had eight children, five of whom 
are now living. 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH 

DR. GASTON. 

Alabama. 



97 



B. GASTON* was born January 
1834, in Chester county, S. C, 
is the son of Dr. John B. Gaston, 

an eminent physician of that county. 

The Gastons are of French descent, and 
their ancestors are noticed in history as distin- 
guished and zealous adherents of the Huguenot 
cause in the early part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. John Gaston, from whom the subject of 
this sketch is seven removes in direct lineal 
descent, sought refuge in Scotland after the re- 
vocation of the edict of Nantes. The family 
afterwards migrated to. Ireland, where John Gas- 
ton, a descendant of the preceding and great- 
grandfather of the present Dr. John B. Gaston, 
was born ; he emigrated to the United States 
about the year 1730, and having some time 
afterwards married Esther Waugh in Pennsylva- 
nia, removed about the year 1750, with some of 
the Scctch-Irish families, to South Carolina and 
settled upon the Catawba river. His home- 
stead was near this river, and known then, as it 
is now, by the name of Cedar Shoals. John 
Gaston, who was familiarly called Justice Gas- 
ton, from having been a justice of the peace 
under British rule, although advanced in years, 
took an active part in the war for Independence, 
and urged his patriotic band of sons, nine in 
number, and all his neighbors to a vigorous de- 
fence of their rights. Seven of his sons were 
engaged at the battle of Fort Moultrie on Sulli- 
van's Island, and three were killed at the battle 
of Hanging Rock, while another, who was a 
lieutenant in the Revolutionary Army, fell a 
victim to small-pox in Sumter's retreat from 
Wright's Bluff. When news of the death of 
her sons reached Mrs. Gaston, she said : " I 
grieve for their loss, but they could not have 
died in a better cause." Joseph Gaston, the 
youngest son of Justice Gaston, was the grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch ; he took part, 



* The facts referring to the ancestry of Dr. John B. 
Gaston were gathered from "Women of the Revolution," 



by Mrs 



Ellet. 
7 



at the age of sixteen, with his brothers in the 
battle of Hanging Rock, where he received a 
severe wound in the face, carrying the scar to 
his grave. He afterwards became a successful 
planter, was a member of the State Legislature 
from his district, and died at a good old age in 
1836. Mary Buford McFadden, the wife of Dr. 
John B. Gaston, senior, was a native of South 
Carolina and of Scotch descent. Five of their 
sons were in the Confederate army at one time, 
of whom Captain I. Lucius Gaston and W. H. 
Gaston, both of the Sixth South Carolina Infan- 
try, were killed in battle ; and Isaac N. Gaston of 
the same command died while in the service. Dr. 
John B. Gaston, the younger, received hisprimary 
education at Cedar Shoals Academy, Chester 
county, and entered the South Carolina College, 
Columbia, S. C, of which institution four of his 
brothers were graduates, in 1849, an d graduated 
thence in 1S52. Among his classmates at the 
college were Judge Joshua Hudson, now of the 
Circuit Court of South Carolina ; Leroy F. 
Yeomans, now Attorney-General of South Caro- 
lina, and Samuel W. Melton, Attorney-General 
of South Carolina in Governor D. H. Chamber- 
lain's administration. He commenced the study 
of medicine in Columbia, S. C, under his 
brother, Dr. I. McFadden Gaston, now of 
Brazil, and in the fall of 1853 went to Philadel- 
phia, where he entered the Medical Department 
of the University of Pennsylvania, and in addi- 
tion to attending the regular course of lectures, 
received private instruction from Dr. John Neil. 
He graduated from the University M. D., May 
5th, 1855. Commencing the practice of his 
profession in York county, S. C, he remained 
there until May, 1857, when he removed to 
Montgomery, Ala. In July of that year he 
formed a partnership with Dr. Nathan Bozeman, 
now of New York, which remained in force for 
two years, when Dr. Bozeman left for New 
Orleans. Dr. Gaston continued to conduct a 
general practice in Montgomery until January, 
1861, when he was commissioned by Governor 
Andrew B. Moore Surgeon of the State Militia, 
and was ordered to Fort Morgan at the entrance 
of Mobile Bay. He remained there about two 



9» 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



months, and on July 19th was appointed Surgeon 
in the Fourteenth Alabama Regiment and ac- 
companied it to the Potomac, where it formed 
part of General J. E. Johnston's army. He 
was present with his regiment on the march 
through the Peninsula to meet General Mc- 
Clellan, and afterwards as they fell back on 
Richmond, and through the terrible seven days' 
fight around that city. He participated in the 
second battle of Manassas, Sharpsburg, Freder- 
icksburg, Ghancellorsville and Gettysburg. After 
the latter battle, in July, 1863, he was appointed 
Surgeon of General Wilcox's brigade with the 
title of " Senior Surgeon of Brigade," and with 
it took part in all the battles from the Wilder- 
ness down to Petersburg. Soon after his arrival 
there he was ordered to Richmond and placed 
in charge of the Alabama division of the Howard 
Grove hospital, a very extensive institution, of 
which his division alone contained five hundred 
and fifty beds. He had sixteen pavilions and 
several tents under his supervision, besides hav- 
ing a number of assistant surgeons under his 
control. He remained in charge there until the 
surrender, when he returned South, stopping for 
some months with his relations in North Caro- 
lina. In November, 1865, he arrived at Mont- 
gomery, which he had never visited since he 
left for the front four years before, and recom- 
menced the practice of his profession in partner- 
ship with Dr. W. I. Holt, with whom he re- 
mained associated until 1870. Since that time 
he has conducted a large and increasing practice 
by himself. At the annual session of the Medi- 
cal Association of the State of Alabama, held in 
Mobile, March, 1869, Dr. Gaston, as annual 
orator, delivered the first annual address after 
the reorganization of the Association, in which 
he proposes the question: What is life? or 
rather, what are the dynamical agencies of life? 
After briefly reviewing the opinions of some of 
the most distinguished schools in reference to 
that question, he sajis : 

" Horace, writing of the proper structure of a 
dramatic composition, tells us, 'Let not a God 
be introduced unless a plot happen worthy such 
an unrayeller.' This rule is equally applicable 



to science. So long as the dynamical agencies 
with which we are acquainted, or modifications 
of them, can be applied in a legitimate and rea- 
sonable interpretation of the phenomena of 
organic life, let no soul, no Archceus, no inde- 
pendent, self-acting vital principle be brought 
into the arena of physiology. The apparent 
great dissimilarity between the organic and inor- 
ganic processes seems to be the principal ground 
for the denial that they are due to the same or 
correlative agencies. This denial proceeds upon 
the assumption that phenomenal differences, 
dissimilitudes in appearance, afford conclusive 
evidence of want of common origin and substan- 
tial identity. In the further discussion of this 
subject, abundant illustration of the contrary of 
this proposition will be observed in the mutual 
convertibility of forces, and in the totally dif- 
ferent manifestations of correlative dynamical 
agencies. 

"For the present, only a single example, in a 
familiar substance, will be offered. No one, at 
all familiar with the hardness, brilliancy and 
beauty of the diamond would ever suppose, 
judging from sensible properties, that it was 
in any way related to its less precious, but not 
less useful congener, the common charcoal ; or 
that either or both could possibly be identified 
with plumbago. Yet they are all well-known 
allotropic states of a single substance — carbon. 
He who believes that the organic or vital forces 
are derived from physical forces — the forces of 
inorganic matter — must expect to encounter the 
same sort of difficulties in it, as in believing that 
the matter of organic bodies is derived from the 
inorganic world. And, conversely, he who 
denies that the organic or vital forces are derived 
from the physical forces on account of these 
difficulties should, on account of the same sort 
of difficulties, deny that the matter of organic 
bodies is derived from the inorganic world. For 
if we examine the anatomy — the color, form, 
texture, and composition — of the various tissues 
of the body, together with their wonderful com- 
bination to form a complete individual, we can- 
not but conclude that the gulf which separates 
the matter of which they are formed from inor- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



99 



ganic matter, is not less wide than that which 
separates the vital from the physical forces. But 
we know that the matter of organic bodies is 
derived from the inorganic world ; and that after 
death it again returns to the condition whence 
it came. There is, therefore, a mutual convert- 
ibility. And 1 am thoroughly persuaded that 
there is a like relation between the forces con- 
trolling the movements of inorganic and organic 
bodies. In the world's great crucible, and in 
the crucible of the chemist, bodies may decom- 
pose and lose their identity; but the economist of 
nature gathers up each atom, and reserves it for 
a future, and perhaps for a nobler use. So it is 
with force. Man may come, and man may go, 
but the forces which animate his body are as 
indestructible as the everlasting hills. Before 
proceeding further, let us endeavor to exalt our- 
selves to the conception of force. And, since 
heat is the most familiar mode of force, let us 
inquire what is heat? 'When I say of motion 
that it is the genus of which heat is the species, 
I would be understood to mean, not that heat 
generates motion, or that motion generates heat 
(though both are true in certain cases), but that 
heat itself, its essence and quiddity, is motion, 
and nothing else. Heat is a motion, expansive, 
restrained, and acting in its strife upon the 
smaller particles of bodies.' This language, em- 
bodying the results, as it were, of a philosophical 
inspiration, was used by Bacon, more than two 
hundred years ago; and it is the language in 
which experimental philosophers of to-day ex- 
press their conception of the results of the most 
careful experiments on this subject. If I strike 
upon a bell, and, after listening to its clear, 
musical note, ask, what is sound? you will at 
once reply that sound is due to vibrations trans- 
mitted through the atmosphere to the ear. But 
when I strike a smaller bell, the vibrations are 
more rapid and the note is higher. And if I have 
a series of bells of graduated sizes, I can, by 
striking them in succession, sound all the notes 
of the musical scale. This is actually done by 
the Swiss bell-ringers. Sound, then, is a mode 
of motion; and in the gamut we have a scale 
of notes depending upon the rapidity of the 



vibrations. The lowest note of the piano is pro- 
duced by 28 vibrations per second, and the 
highest note of the picolo flute by 4,752 vibra- 
tions per second. If I ask, what is light? your 
minds revert at once to the undulatory theory 
established by Young and Fresnel, which repre- 
sents light as undulations transmitted through a 
special medium or ether. This ether pervades all 
space, as well as inter-atomic pores of every 
substance, as the intervals between the heavenly 
bodies. ' The length of waves both of sound 
and light and the number of strokes which they 
respectively impart to the ear and eye have been 
strictly determined.' Red undulations shock the 
retina of the eye with almost incredible rapidity 
— 450 billion times per second; and going 
through the spectral colors the undulations gradu- 
ally but rapidly increase up to violet with 800 
billion vibrations per second. Light, then, is a 
mode of motion; and in the solar spectrum we 
have a scale of colors depending upon the rapid- 
ity of the undulations. 

"But suppose I discharge a musket -ball 
against a plate of iron, and, on finding it hot, 
ask, what is heat? our conceptions, probably, 
will not be so clear as in regard to sound and 
light ; not because the subject is more obscure, but 
because we are less familiar with it in this new 
relation. What are the facts? A body in rapid 
motion has been suddenly arrested, and a shock, 
a quivering, shivering motion, has been com- 
municated to the particles of matter composing 
the ball and the plate. Molecular motion is the 
condition. Heat is the result. Heat, then, is 
a mode of motion. And, as in the musical scale, 
and in the solar spectrum, we have scales repre- 
senting the rapidity of the undulations, the 
motions constituting sound and light, so, in the 
thermometer, we have a scale representing the 
rapidity of that mode of motion called heat. 
. . . . If after admiring a stately and beautifully 
proportioned edifice, we inquire as to .the imme- 
diate conditions of its construction, it will be 
found that it is the result of a series of well- 
directed movements impressed upon building 
materials, in accordance with the plan of an 
architect. So, too, a scrutiny into man's body 



Lofft 



IOO 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



discovers a series of movements in matter in 
accordance with the plan of the Great Architect 
of the universe. But, who are the builders — 
who are the laborers that toil without ceasing, in 
this mysterious temple of the soul? The soul 
and an independent vital principle have already 
been excluded. We are, therefore, left to deal 
exclusively with those forces, and modifications 
of them, with which we are more familiar, in 
their relations to inorganic matter. The ultimate 
fact of these forces, so far as it is knowable — so 
far as observation and experiment have deter- 
mined — is motion. The ultimate fact of the 
organic forces, so far as knowable, is also motion. 
There is, then, a generic unity of the forces of 
the organic and inorganic world. Motion, there- 
fore, is the genus. Heat, light, electricity, and 
other modes of motion — all mutually convertible 
— are the species. There is harmony in this' 
doctrine. There are unity and variety in this 
law. These constitute the order and beauty, 
not only of this law, but of the great law of the 
universe. Gravity sustains planets and satellites. 
A sparrow does not fall to the ground without it. 
In the year 1837, Professor Samuel Jackson pro- 
pounded, for the first time, in an introductory 
lecture to the students of the University of 
Pennsylvania, one of those brilliant and pro- 
found thoughts which shed lustre upon the mind 
which produces them, and upon the era which 
gives them birth. These are his words: ' Phys- 
ical phenomena, according to the class they be- 
long to, are referred to a few simple laws — as of 
gravity, of affinity, of galvanism, of electricity, 
of magnetism ; all of which, it can now be 
scarcely doubted, are themselves but modifica- 
tions of one great law or force. The force, pro- 
ducing physiological or organic phenomena, 
may be no more than a modification of the same 
ruling poiver displaying its activity in organized 
matter.' In the same lecture the proposition 
was laid down that the causes and actions 
'which, in inorganic bodies, constitute physics, 
in organic bodies, constitute physiology — or, as 
it may be more aptly termed, organic physics.' 

"These views constitute, so far as I am in- 
formed, the dawn of a new mode of philoso- 



phizing with regard to the dynamical agencies 

of living beings Light, which presents 

in the spectrum, thermal, luminous, and chem- 
ical rays ; which causes hydrogen and chlorine 
to combine with explosive violence, and which 
decomposes certain chemical solutions — a fact 
utilized in photography — would naturally be 
supposed to produce some effects on the ever- 
changing matter of organic bodies. There is, 
in its effects upon animals, little that is tangible; 
yet, no physician of observation will deny its 
importance. In vegetable physiology, its 
effects are most conspicuous. Through the in- 
fluence of the sun's rays the leaves of plants 
produce, from carbonic acid, water and am- 
monia — all binary compounds — those more 
highly developed proximate principles from 
which their tissues are constructed. The ether, 
whose undulations constitute light, pervades the 
whole organism, and, although luminous rays 
do not, as such, penetrate the body, may not 
resultant, correlative rays — or may not the in- 
visible, ultra violet, chemical rays of the spec- 
trum (which are powerful agents in photog- 
raphy), penetrate the bodies of animals and 
produce those effects, not yet isolated, so im- 
portant to their health and vigor, and to which 
light is essential? .... But, beside those 
phenomena of living beings which can be re- 
ferred to physical, chemical, and mechanical 
agencies, there are others, appertaining exclu- 
sively to living organisms, such as 'growth or 
nutrition, and the development of typical or- 
ganic forms from a formless material ; ' and 
others still, such as nervous excito-motor force 
and muscular contractility, predicable only of 
animals; none of which can be referred to any 
of the modes of force with which we are familiar 
in the inorganic world. Neither heat nor light, 
nor electricity, nor magnetism, nor gravity; 
neither one nor all of the physical, mechanical, 
and chemical forces could ever construct those 
matchless optical and acoustic instruments, the 
eye and ear, differentiated in their organic 
forms and anatomical structure, and endowed 
with special sensibility, as we find them in the 
higher orders of animals. Are the physical 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



forces, therefore, excluded ? Does this affirma- 
tion involve a negation of the persistence of 
force? By no means. Just as heat is modified 
by the media through which it acts, so as, in one 
case, to produce mechanical force; in another, 
electricity; and, in a third, chemical affinity; 
all presenting different phenomena — so may the 
modes of motion known as physical be so modi- 
fied, by the media found in the embryo and 
fully developed body, as to produce all those 
dynamical phenomena which are peculiar to 
organized beings. In the locomotive, fuel is 
consumed exclusively for dynamical purposes. 
In living organisms, food supplies the building 
or nutritive materials, and also the constructive 
force. In physics, heat has its 'mechanical 
equivalent.' 1 The heat which raises one pound 
of water one degree Fahrenheit in temperature 
will, if applied mechanically, raise a pound 
weight seven hundred and seventy-two feet 
high ; or seven hundred and seventy-two pounds 
one foot high. And conversely, a pound weight, 
falling through seven hundred and seventy-two 
feet will, when arrested, produce heat sufficient 
to raise one pound of water one degree. These 
are well-determined facts. In vegetable physi- 
ology, heat has its constructive or formative 
equivalc7it. In animals, it combines the two. 
In them it is the source of both motor and for- 
mative forces. ' ' 

In December, 1874, Dr. Gaston published in 
the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal a 
Review of the Transactions of the Medical Asso- 
ciation of the State of Alabama in its Twenty- 
seventh Session. In reviewing the paper on 
yellow fever by Dr. R. F. Michel, of Mont- 
gomery, he notices the former's conspicuous im- 
partiality in arraying himself under the banner 
of the non-contagionists, and in the same sen- 
tence saying that he " believes as much in the 
local origin as in its being an exotic;" and, 
conclusively demolishing the doctor's claim that 
" The characteristic features of black vomit were 
first insisted upon by Dr. Middleton Michel in 
the Charleston Medical Journal, May, 1853," 
points out that, in 1740, Dr. Henry Warren as- 
serted that black vomit was "mortified blood," 



and that numerous other writers had anticipated 
in every essential distinctive quality Dr. Mid- 
dleton Michel's description of the black vomit. 
He instances Dr. I. C. Nott, who, in the Amer- 
ican Journal, April, 1845, writes : " Black vomit 
is blood exhaled in its natural state from the 
capillaries of the stomach, intestines, and even 
the bladder, and changed black by the secre- 
tions with which it comes in contact; this 
chemical change, my facts go to show, is pro- 
duced by one or more acids." In a brief an- 
alysis of Dr. Jerome Cochran's paper on "The 
White Blood-corpuscle in health and disease," 
he says: "It is to be regretted, we think, that 
the term cell has been so extended in significa- 
tion as to embrace the homogeneous amceboid 
particle of living matter which is now regarded 
as the unit of organization. Authority, how- 
ever, has so decreed it ; and, although its deriv- 
ative meaning and common sense suggest ideas 
and geometric forms which find no illustration 
in the white blood-corpuscle, we are taught that 
this corpuscle — without a cell- wall, non-nucleated 
and non-differentiated — is a simple cell." . . . 
"The most sweeping generalizations of biolo- 
gists, however, are embraced and followed un- 
hesitatingly and with unswerving fidelity to 
their logical extremes. Not only is the some- 
what startling proposition ' that living matter is 
always and everywhere of the same identical 
nature ; the same in its chemical constitution ; 
the same in its physical properties; the same in 
its vital endowments ' accepted as a ' scientific 
demonstration ; ' but the identification of the 
white blood-corpuscle and the amceba — a legiti- 
mate deduction from the foregoing proposition, 
we believe — is adopted and unqualifiedly af- 
firmed. 'Yea, verily, it is an amceba,' says the 
doctor. Now, is it legitimate to conclude be- 
cause, with the various analytical appliances at 
our command, including the microscope, we 
can discover no difference in the living matter 
of plants and animals, that, therefore, they are 
absolutely identical ? because, forsooth, they 
seem to be the same that their identity is a 
scientific • demonstration, to question which 
would be an evident absurdity? We think not. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Do not the differentiations which follow close 
on this state of primal uniformity afford some 
ground to suspect that there may have been un- 
observed, transcendental differentiations in the 
living matter itself? Are there not good rea- 
sons for believing that the germs of a conferva 
and of an oak, of a zoophyte, and of a man — ; 
all microscopically identical — are, after all, 
somehow or other not exactly the same thing? 
Let us hypothetic-ally transpose these factors of 
organization. Would the germ of an oak, rest- 
ing upon the membrana decidua, so develop and 
so differentiate under the influence of the new 
circumstances and incident forces as to form a 
man ? Would the fertilized human ovum, placed 
in the embryo-sac of the plant, develop and grow, 
and spread its branches, a shade and resting- 
place for the displaced and wandering plant- 
germ now developed into a man ? Who can 
tell ? That either of these results would happen 
is certainly not a scientific demonstration. That 
either of them would not happen is, we believe, 
the verdict alike of common sense and rational 
philosophy. It may be claimed that the iden- 
tity of living matter, always and everywhere, is 
a fact of observation which should not and can- 
not be ignored until some heterogeneity is 
discovered. 

"But it should also be remembered that the 
subsequent differentiations of said matter are 
also facts of observation which cannot be ig- 
nored. And in the explanation of these it 
seems quite as philosophical to invoke the aid 
of transcendental differences in the primal, liv- 
ing matter itself, as to throw the whole respon- 
sibility on the incident forces. Symmetrical 
diseases of the skin show that every part of the 
skin is different from every other part, except 
its symmetrical part, and there is no proof that 
even symmetrical parts are identical in structure. 
Symmetrical diseases of the bones illustrate the 
same fact with regard to the osseous system. 
And although inappreciable to us by the most 
delicate chemical and microscopic analyses, 
there may be heterogeneity in the living matter 
of plants and animals. We can scarcely con- 
ceive of living matter more free from the dis- 



turbing influences of varying circumstances and 
forces than the segmentation-spheres of the 
ovum. Nevertheless, in them the most striking 
differentiations are inaugurated. ' They march 
like soldiers to their appropriate places ' in 
forming the blastodermic layers of the embryo ; 
and this is but the beginning of a series of un- 
paralleled differentiations observed during the 
development of the embryo and foetus. Not 
only are we taught the universal identity of liv- 
ing matter, the identification of the white blood- 
corpuscle and the amceba, the invariable com- 
munity of character of the white blood-corpuscle 
with the lymph and pus-corpuscles, but the rig- 
orous identification of the white blood-corpuscle 
with the germinal vesicle and the segmentation- 
spheres of the developing ovum, is a speculation 
upon which Dr. Cochran especially insists. In 
view of these conclusions, he may well exclaim, 
' The stone so long rejected of the builders has 
become, indeed, the head of the corner; the 
foundation stone upon which must be con- 
structed the whole edifice of the physiology of 
the future.' " A distinguished authority in the 
profession speaks of this review in the following 
high terms: " I find it to be almost a model of 
what such a paper should be, showing that the 
doctor has read with thorough appreciation the 
articles he undertakes to notice, and he discusses 
them from the stand-point of a competent knowl- 
edge of professional literature in relation to the 
special subject o r each one of them. The style 
is terse, clear, strong, elegant, analytical and 
critical in the best sense of the word." 

Dr. Gaston has never taken an active part in 
politics; he has, however, felt a deep interest in 
public affairs, and at times has participated, 
through the public press, in the discussion of 
questions which were prominently before the 
people of his State. The following discussion, 
in which he writes over the signature of 
"X. Y.," is introduced as interesting and im- 
portant, because it illustrates the changed status 
of the secession question, which had been promi- 
nent and fundamental before and during the 
war between the States. The Convention of 
1875 h ac l stricken from the Bill of Rights a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



clause, introduced by the Convention of 1868, 
which declared " That this State has no right to 
sever its relations to the Federal Union," and 
had substituted the following: " This State shall 
never claim or exercise any right to sever its 
relations to the Federal Union." At this stage 
of legislation on the subject, the following dis- 
cussion commenced. Afterwards this clause was 
reconsidered, and " This State accepts as final 
the established fact that from the Federal Union 
there can be no secession of any State ' ' is now 
the declaration of the Bill of Rights of Alabama 
on this subject. 

"This State has no right to sever its relations 
with the Federal Union. 

"Editors Advertiser: Is the above propo- 
sition correct ? War in its last analysis is a 
bloody conflict of great ideas. In the late war 
between the States the South asserted and the 
United States Government denied the right of 
secession. The assertion of the right and the 
denial of the right were placed in direct conflict, 
and the case was adjudicated by the sword. The 
denial of the right of secession triumphed, and 
its assertion was surrendered. In surrendering 
its arms and armies to the United States Gov- 
ernment and accepting a place under said gov- 
ernment, the South ceased to assert the right of 
secession and accepted the doctrine of the vic- 
tors, to wit: that no State has a right to secede 
from the Union. Is this a correct statement of 
facts and logical results of the war? If it is, 
'This State has no right to sever its relations to 
the Federal Union,' and the incorporation of 
this proposition in the Bill of Rights would be a 
simple statement of a fact of history. This 
State, we believe, once had the right to secede, 
but in surrendering her armed assertion of the 
right, she surrendered the right itself. If the 
people of the South had sat in convention with 
the representatives of the ' loyal ' States, and had 
recorded their votes in favor of the dominant 
doctrine, they would not have bound themselves 
more firmly to its recognition than they have 
done by their surrender and their subsequent 
acts. "X. Y." 



"Editors Advertiser: In your morning 
paper ' X. Y. ' asserted the correctness of the 
above proposition, and undertook to establish 
his theory by a conclusion drawn from premises 
which will not stand the test of correct logic. 
He says : ' The assertion of the right and the 
denial of the right were placed in direct conflict, 
and the case was adjudicated by the sword. The 
denial of the right of secession triumphed, and 
its assertion was surrendered. In surrendering 
its arms and armies to the United States Gov- 
ernment and accepting a place under said gov- 
ernment, the South ceased to assert the right of 
secession.' To this the writer assents as correct, 
but I do not agree that his next proposition con- 
tains a correct proposition, and in that consists 
the sophistry of the argument. He says, 'and 
accepted the doctrine of the victors, to wit: 
that no State has a right to secede from the 
Union.' The South accepted the fact that a 
State could not secede. Let "us make no mistake 
here. "Z., etc." 

"Editors Advertiser: Right in its broadest 
sense is conformity to law. Rights are civil, 
political, religious, natural, etc. An 'established 
fact,' in regard to the conduct of persons or 
State, is a rule of action — the law of the thing. 
After a law has been 'accepted,' can there be 
any right in the accepting party to do what the 
law prohibits? 'Let us make no mistake here.' 

"X. Y." 

"Editors Advertiser: In the first article 
of ' X. Y ,' he undertook to show that 'this 
State has no right to secede,' and to make good 
this conclusion he asserted, as a necessary pre- 
mise, that ' the South accepted the doctrine of 
the victors, to wit : that no State has a right to 
secede.' The South having accepted the 'doc- 
trine ' that a State ' has no right ' to secede, ergo, 
' X. Y.' says that proposition should be put in 
our new Constitution. But when attention is 
called to his mistake, -which consists in his sup- 
posing that people who once thought that a 
State might rightfully secede, have not only 
' ceased to assert ' that right, but have ' accepted 
the doctrine that no State has a right to secede,' 



io4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



and seeing that this is by no means a necessary 
sequence, 'X. Y.' now seems to be seeking 
more sea-room, in that he now claims the 
' broadest sense ' of the terms used by him — 
which, by the way, we suggest, is not quite safe 
in the work of constitution-making — and so, 
to patch his logic, we now have, under the 
head of ' What is a Right?' a definition of 
that term; and we are told to consider it as 
used in 'its broadest sense' — i. e., 'conformity 
to law.' Very well, let us substitute the defini- 
tion for the word used, and see the result. The 
proposition would then read, this State cannot, 
in 'conformity to law, sever its relation,' etc. 
In answer to the proposition as now put, we will 
ask a question of two words : What law? If the 
country was now in a state of war, it might be 
claimed that by the law of war, or vis major, 
a State has no right to secede; but we all know 
that our delegates have already, by solemn re- 
solve, thanked God that the people of Alabama 
do now enjoy the right to govern themselves. 
' X. Y. ' not only insists on the ' broadest sense ' 
of the word 'right,' but he claims the right to 
define the terms used by the writer, in order to 
help himself out of this difficulty; and now let 
us see whether his proficiency at defining ,is not 
worse, if possible, than his logic. He says ' an 
established fact, in regard to persons or State, 
is a rule of action — the law of the thing.' It 
will be seen that 'X. Y. ' uses the terms 'estab- 
lished fact ' and ' law ' as synonymous. Let us 
see: every law is 'an established fact;' but 
does it follow that every established fact is a 
'law,' any more than every animal is an ele- 
phant? A being a strong man, well armed, 
meets B on the Streets, knocks him down and 
ties him hand and foot, takes his purse and 
leaves him to get up the best he can. That B 
has been brutally bruised and robbed, is 'an 
established fact ; ' but who will call this ' a rule 
of action,' or a law? True, Blackstone defines 
a law to be a rule of action, and we all know 
that all rules of action must be 'established 
facts ; ' but it does not follow that all ' estab- 
lished facts' arc rules of action, or laws. In the 
case put, A's 'doctrine' may be that B is a 



trifling fellow, and has no rights which he (A) 
is bound to respect, and therefore A pretends to 
maltreat B and take his property. B resists A's 
claim, or 'doctrine,' by force, until finally he, 
by mere vis major, is put to the necessity of 
ceasing opposition, and B carrying out his 
' doctrine ' by leaving A bruised, helpless and 
despoiled. Can it be justly said that B accepts 
A's 'doctrine?' To accept a doctrine means 
to adopt it, or to receive with approbation or 
favor, to value or esteem. Many wrongs may 
become 'established facts,' but it does not follow 
that a wrong can ever become right, however 
long continued. I may give my assent to the 
fact that a great wrong has become ' an estab- 
lished fact,' and make up my mind that it can 
never be altered, as a matter of opinion, just as 
I believe the South has done about secession, but 
it does not follow that I accept the principle 
upon which the wrong is based — the ' doctrine ' 
if you please. Truly, ' let us make no mistake 
here.' "Z., etc." 

"Editors Advertiser: Your correspondent 
'Z.' and the writer of this communication agree 
that secession is dead, and the unwelcome task 
of again raising the mantle and displaying the 
wounds of this slain Caesar may be neither at- 
tractive to your readers nor profitable to the 
State. With an aim, however, at some good re- 
sults, and with no desire whatever for a dialectic 
triumph, I propose briefly to review your cor- 
respondent's position, together with Section 36 
of the proposed Bill of Rights. I was a seces- 
sionist, and when our armies surrendered in 
1865, might truly have said, ' My heart is in the 
coffin there with Cassar. ' Such considerations, 
however, should not bind us in a sentimental 
adhesion to principles which once obtained, but 
have long since been lost and overthrown ; but 
should impel us to a candid investigation and a 
cheerful acceptance of our present relations with 
the general government. 

"Your correspondent, 'Z.,' constructs a spe- 
cious but superficial and utterly unsound argu- 
ment for the right of secession out of a little as- 
sault and battery case which he gets up between 
A and B. There is no analogy whatever be- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



*°5 



tween the legal relations and effects of an ordi- 
nary rencounter betwixt two individuals, and the 
legal effects and relations of war between nations. 
The one is in violation of all law, human and 
divine. The other is the legally recognized 
mode of prosecuting the rights and redressing 
the grievances of great political powers. When 
the rights of individuals are invaded or denied, 
they must, except when in great bodily danger, 
resort to the legislature or the courts ; and when 
the case has been decided, neither party has a 
right to violate the decision which has been ren- 
dered. When the rights of a nation are invaded, 
or when nations disagree with regard to their 
rights, there is no appeal except to arms, and 
when once the doors of the Temple of Janus 
have been thrown open, the results of the con- 
flict must be accepted as legal and right. The 
analogy between the two last-mentioned cases is 
complete, and the binding effect of the results is 
the same in both. Vattel, p. 385, ' Law of Na- 
tions,' says, ' by the rules of the voluntary law 
of nations, every regular war is on both sides ac- 
counted just as to its effects.' If ' Z.' had been 
seeking an analogy in ordinary life for the con- 
duct of the bandit or the pirate, his effort with 
A and B would have been exceedingly happy ; 
but as his object was entirely different, it simply 
illustrates his want of familiarity with the just 
analogies and great principles of the law. Your 
correspondent ' Z.' seems not to have any very 
definite idea as to what really constitutes right. 
He estimates the quality of an action by a senti- 
ment instead of a rule. With him right cer- 
tainly is not 'conformity to law,' and is, I am 
disposed to think, one of the original data of the 
' Philosophy of the Bones.' Over one of my 
poor sentences, after inadvertently leaving out 
two somewhat important words in quoting it, 
'Z.' has achieved an easy triumph. But I am 
free to say that the sentence as it originally 
stood is defective, - and liable, possibly, to the 
criticism which was so well made against its 
somewhat mutilated representative. As will be 
seen in the sequel, however, the fault was not in 
the material at hand for the argument, but in my 
want of skill in using it. Section 36 of the Bill 



of Rights in the Constitution of Alabama de- 
clares that ' this State has no right to sever its 
relations with the Federal Union ; ' and the 
present Convention of the people, by altering 
this clause, has by implication denied either the 
policy or the correctness of the proposition 
therein contained. It is believed that this 
clause, expressing as it does a limitation upon 
the rights of the people, never should have been 
placed in the Bill of Rights. It expresses not a 
right, but a disability, and the instrument con- 
taining it is, consequently, not a Bill of Rights, 
but a Bill of Rights and disabilities. 

"But since two Conventions of the people 
have seen fit to make declarations on this subject, 
it may be well to inquire which declaration 
is true, and which, if either, is false. The 
present Convention ("36th Sec. Bill of Rights) 
declares that ' this State accepts as final the 
established fact that from the Federal Union 
there can be no secession of any State.' This 
section makes a declaration not with regard to 
the right to secede, but with regard to the 
ability — the power to secede. It tells us not 
what is right, not what is lawful, but what is 
possible, or rather what is impossible. The lan- 
guage is unqualified, 'There can be no secession 
of any State.' If we question the propriety and 
fitness of the negation of rights to the people in 
the present Bill of Rights, what must we think 
of the attempt on the part of the Convention 
now in session, to determine the possibilities of 
the strength and power and will of States and 
their incorporating conclusions on this subject 
in the Bill of Rights ? The fate of the Confed- 
erate States tells us what has been on this point ; 
but no human sagacity can tell what can be, or 
what cannot be in future. It cannot prop- 
erly be pleaded that the Convention meant to 
say that there can be no rightful nor lawful se- 
cession of any State, for these words, or expres- 
sions of similar import, have been so studiously 
rejected or avoided, that their implication would 
do violence to the entire history of the proceed- 
ings of the Convention on this subject. Verily, 
the declaration contained in this 36th Section 
of the proposed Bill of Rights is the most se- 



io6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



rious attempt at fortune-telling known to modern 
history. The Convention should prescribe the 
principles which are to govern the State ; but it 
should neither speculate nor prophesy in refer- 
ence to the possibilities of the power of this or 
any other State. Is the declaration of the Con- 
vention of 1868 correct? Is it true that 'this 
State has no right to sever its relations with the 
Federal Union ? ' In the late war between the 
States, the South affirmed, and the United States 
Government denied, the right of secession. 
The assertion of the right and the denial of the 
right were placed in direct conflict, and the case 
was adjudicated by the sword. The denial of 
the right triumphed. In surrendering its arms 
and armies to the United States Government, 
and accepting a place under said Government, 
the South ceased to assert the right of secession, 
and accepted the doctrine of the victors, to wit: 
That no State has a right to secede from the 
Union. The battle-field is the great interna- 
tional court of appeals; and if the South and 
North, by agreement, had submitted the case to 
the decision of a civil court, and the dominant 
doctrine had been the judgment of the court, 
this State would not be more firmly committed 
to its rightful authority than she has been by her 
surrender and subsequent acts. But it is objected 
that the Southern States accepted simply the 
fact that a State could not secede, but have not 
surrendered the right of secession. In order to 
answer this objection, it is necessary to inquire 
what is a right ? Right is conformity to law. 
Rights are civil, political, natural, social, etc. 
A fact regulating the conduct of persons or 
States is a rule of action — the law of the thing. 
If a law is accepted, it is binding on the accept- 
ing party ; and there can be no right in said 
party to do what the law prohibits. ' By the 
voluntary law of nations every regular war is on 
both sides accounted just as to its effects.' The 
Convention admits as an established fact ' that 
the rule governing the conduct of this State with 
regard to secession, is against secession.' It also 
admits that the State of Alabama has accepted 
and now 'accepts' this rule 'as final.' Now 
can there be in a State which acknowledges that 



the law is against secession, in a State which 
'accepts' said law 'as final,' any right to do 
what said law prohibits ? If not, the State of 
Alabama has no right to sever its relations with 
the Federal Union. "X. Y." 

The foregoing argument appears to be conclu- 
sive in its denial of the right of secession. The 
Convention, however, although admitting that 
the power to secede has been crushed, seems to 
have had rather confused ideas with regard to 
the status of the right ; or, at any rate, it was 
unwilling to commit itself to the denial of the 
right made by the Convention of 1868. To 
the American Journal of Medical Sciences of 
January, 1876, Dr. Gaston contributed a paper 
on the " Medico-legal evidence of Independent 
Life in a new-born child," which excited a great 
deal of attention. He cites two cases which 
occurred, one in an American and the other in 
an English court, in which the point at issue 
was to determine the legal evidence of life in a 
new-borTi child. Both the American and the 
English courts agreed that the beating of the 
heart of an infant after the severance of the um- 
bilical cord was conclusive of the independent 
extra-uterine life of the child, and as this judg- 
ment depends upon the testimony of medical 
experts, Dr. Gaston proceeds to inquire whether 
the decision is or is not consistent with a just 
interpretation of" the phenomena of organic and 
animal life. He says : 

"Of the great functions of organic life, 
respiration and circulation appear to be the 
conditions most unremittingly essential to the 
life of the higher order of animals. Respiration 
which, in general terms, is the evolution of car- 
bonic acid from the fluids of organized beings 
and the absorption of oxygen from the surround- 
ing medium, exists alike in the vegetable and 
animal kingdoms. All plants and all animals 
perform essentially the same respiratory function. 
It is an essential of organic life. Circulation, 
on the contrary, is not an essential of organic 
life. The simplest organisms, both animal and 
vegetable, have no circulation whatever. Every 
part of their surface being equally capable of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



107 



absorbing liquid nutriment, there is no necessity 
for a circulation. Medical men, in testifying 
that the beating of the heart after the severance 
of the umbilical cord is conclusive of the inde- 
pendent extra-uterine life of the child, have 
undervalued that function, respiration, which is 
always and everywhere essential to organic life, 
and have given undue importance to a function 
which is not an essential of organic life, and 
which is only found amongst plants and animals 
of a somewhat complex differentiation of organs. 
That heart-beat is an essential of extra-uterine 
human life, of course no one will deny ; but I 
do deny that it is the essentia/ upon the presence 
of which can be predicated independent extra- 
uterine life. High medical authorities — Drs. 
Penrose, Page and others of this country, and 
Drs. Tyler Smith, Freeman and Alfred Taylor 
of England — testify ' that the continuance of the 
heart's action, after severing of the umbilical 
cord, must be accepted as proof of independent 
life.' The fact is, however, that intra-uterine 
life, so far as heart-beat is concerned, is just as 
independent of the mother as extra-uterine life. 
The fcetus is dependent upon its mother, not for 
heart-beat and circulation, but for oxygen and 
nutrient materials. There is no direct commu- 
nication betwixt the vascular systems of the 
fcetus and the mother. The relation of the 
placental ramifications of the umbilical vessels 
and blood of the fcetus to the mother's blood is 
analogous in many respects to that which exists 
between the branchial vessels and blood of fishes 
and the water which, in obedience to respiratory 
movements, flows between the gill-fringes some- 
what as the blood in the utero-placental sinuses 
flows around and between the fcetal villi of the 
placenta ; and the circulation of the foetus is 
just as independent of the mother as the circu- 
lation of the fish is of the water in which it 
lives and from which it obtains its oxygen and 
food. The fcetal heart-beat and circulation as 
such, are therefore as independent as the adult 
heart -beat and circulation. Not so with respira- 
tion. For the performance of this function the 
fcetus is entirely dependent upon its relations 
with its mother. Of the great organic functions, 



the suspension of any one of which would place 
life in immediate and imminent danger, none is 
so differentially characteristic of fcetal life as 
placental respiration. Destroy it, and intra- 
uterine life must end. What placental respira- 
tion is to the fcetus, pulmonary respiration is to 
the infant. When the former ceases, an essential 
of intra-uterine life ends. When the latter is 
established, a sine qua non of extra-uterine life 
has been supplied. Heart-beat and respiration 
are such absolute essentials of advanced fcetal 
and extra-uterine life, and death follows so sud- 
denly and surely on the destruction of either of 
these functions, that I conceive the true doctrine 
to be, that no child can be known to be alive 
in which either circulation or respiration has 
been destroyed ; and consequently since birth 
involves the speedy destruction of placental 
respiration, that independent extra-uterine life 
cannot be affirmed of an infant which has not 
breathed. Heart-beat is essential to both intra- 
uterine and extra-uterine life, but it is not char- 
acteristic of either. So it is with respiration ; 
but placental respiration is characteristic of 
intra-uterine life, and pulmonary respiration is 
characteristic of extra-uterine life. At birth no 
sign can be conclusive of independent extra- 
uterine life, which is not characteristic of extra- 
uterine life. Does division of the cord give to 
heart-beat a characteristic and independent 
feature which it did not possess before ? I think 
not. If from a railroad train in rapid motion 
the engine should be detached, would not the 
brief continued motion of the train be entirely 
dependent upon its recent relations to the 
engine? Division ef the cord cuts off, so far 
as the mother is concerned, a further supply of 
conditions of life; but it does not give inde- 
pendence of life. I hold that the phenomena 
observed in the children mentioned in the 
American and English law cases, if they were, 
and so far as they were signs of life, were in 
the same measure dependent upon recent rela- 
tions to the mothers, as were similar signs before 
division of the cords. In the children above 
mentioned and in all like cases, there is good 
reason to believe that the heart's action should 



ioS 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



not be relied upon as a strictly test-sign of ani- 
mal life. The first of the permanent organs of 
the embryo to display functional activity, the 
heart pulsates while its walls are still in cellular 
condition, before the formation of its own mus- 
cular tissue, or the development of nerve-tissue 
either in its own substance or in the body at 
large. It beats through life so constantly and 
so regularly, that we can almost ' count time by 
heart-throbs,' and physiologists, however they 
may differ as to the theory, agree as to the fact 
that it may continue to beat after death. Nay 
more, Mr. Todd has shown, contrary to what 
might be expected, that this power of rhythmical 
contraction after death is especially persistent in 
very young animals. The independence of the 
heart's action has been demonstrated by numer- 
ous experiments. In some cold-blooded ani- 
mals it will continue to beat for many hours 
after its removal from the body. This is easily 
demonstrated with the hearts of the frog and 
the turtle ; and Dr. Mitchell states that the heart 
of a sturgeon, which had been removed from 
the body, continued its rhythmical movements 
until the auricle had become so dry that a 
rustling sound was heard with each contraction. 
The life of a new-born child rests very largely 
upon the action of the heart. It is probably the 
most constantly essential of the 'props' of the 
'tripod of life.' The independence of extra- 
uterine life rests, however, neither upon the 
beating of the heart nor upon the division of the 
cord, nor upon both of them together, but upon 
the substitution of the extra-uterine conditions 
of a great organic function constantly essential 
to life, for the fcetal conditions of the same 
function which have been or are about to be 
destroyed. Pulmonary respiration substitutes 
real tangible conditions of independence for 
those of dependence, and until it is established 
there can be no 'independent life.' We have 
seen that heart-beat, although essential to, is not 
characteristic of extra-uterine life, and conse- 
quently does not attach to it any feature or con- 
dition of independence which did not belong to 
ftetal life; that division of the umbilical cord 
may destroy conditions of fcetal life., but that it 



is not in any sense a factor, sign, or condition 
of independent extra-uterine life ; and, finally, 
that beating of the heart of itself will not do for 
a test-sign of life in the animal to which it 
belongs. It, therefore, appears that the pheno- 
menon ' continuance of the heart's action after 
severing of the umbilical cord.' to which, in the 
aforementioned cases, medical experts and 
courts have attached so much importance, was 
not evidence of independent life, but was prob- 
ably simply the last flickering of an extinct 
fcetal life. What is false in science cannot be a 
fact in law: and although legislative bodies may 
yet declare the presence of circulation and pul- 
monary respiration in some extreme cases, such 
as deliveries at non-viable ages, too narrow a 
base upon which to establish the civil rights of 
infants, I feel assured that before long the courts 
must hold that less than this is not in any case 
sufficiently broad. All our knowledge of life is 
purely phenomenal. Of what life is in itself, 
that is apart from its manifestations, we philo- 
sophically know nothing. It is therefore, in the 
present state of science, impossible to draw the 
line and mark accurately where dependence 
ceases and independence begins. I have en- 
deavored, consequently, simply to establish a 
practical distinction based upon some of the dif- 
ferential phenomena of foetal and extra-uterine 
life." 

Much interest and discussion was evoked by 
the publication of this paper. Dr. George W. 
Wells, Secretary of the New York Medico-Legal 
Society, and numerous members of the profession 
in all parts of the country, applied to the author 
for copies. Ex-Senator Comegys, who was one 
of the counsel in the American case, which was 
tried in Delaware, wrote : "I felt quite sure that 
it was not only in itself an able article, but that 
it constituted an unanswerable argument upon the 
subject it treated." Dr. H. J. Bowditch, of 
Boston, speaks of it as " interesting and impor- 
tant." Dr. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans, 
writes: " Your argument appears to be conclu- 
sive." Dr. P. Bryce, of Tuscaloosa, " the ar- 
gument is unanswerable and absolutely convinc- 
ing." Dr. Frank H. Hamilton, of New York, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



109 



describes it as a "most excellent paper." Dr. 
Jerome Cochran, of Mobile, writes : "I have no 
hesitation in pronouncing your argument per- 
fectly conclusive. Not only so but it must be 
held hereafter by every man who can comprehend 
the grounds upon which it is based, that the doc- 
trine you advocate is so absolutely invulnerable 
as to make any attempt at adverse criticism ridi- 
culous;" and again, "I am surprised beyond 
measure that this question has been left until 
now to be placed on proper physiological 
grounds. You should see that your paper goes 
into the hands of Taylor and other authors of 
books on Medical Jurisprudence. The argument, 
indeed, is as plain as the nose on a man's face. 
The extra-uterine — the independent life of a 
mammal — depends absolutely on pulmonary 
respiration. Until pulmonary respiration has 
been established, there is no independent life in 
a mammal.' ' 

In 1875 the Medical Association of the State 
of Alabama, through its Board of Censors, sub- 
mitted to the General Assembly a bill establish- 
ing boards of health in the State. 

When the question of the appropriation for the 
purposes of the bill came before the General As- 
sembly in 1878, Dr. Gaston appeared, in com- 
pany with Drs. Weatherly, Michel and Seelye, 
before the Committees of the Senate and the 
House of Representatives, and in conjunction 
with Dr. Cochran, addressed the Committee, en- 
forcing the obligation of the State to protect the 
persons and property of the people against the as- 
saults of preventable diseases as resting upon the 
same grounds as the duty, universally recognized, 
of protecting their persons and property against 
the assaults of wicked and lawless men; and this 
was done with such effect that the committee, 
which before had been opposed to the appropri- 
ation, reported unanimously in favor of the bill, 
and requested the Doctor to address the House 
of Representatives on its merits. His profes- 
sional engagements, however, prevented his ap- 
pearing before that body. To his persistent and 
untiring exertions was largely due the passage of 
the Act securing the appropriation, by which the 
State Medical Association was recognized as the 



accredited agent of the State in the administra- 
tion of the statutes in relation to public health. 

No other State in the South besides Alabama 
has made appropriation of money to be expended 
by their Boards of Health. By this Act, the 
Medical Association of the State of Alabama 
was constituted the Board of Health, and in or- 
der to facilitate the execution of its health func- 
tions, the Association created a permanent com- 
mittee composed of ten members, and called the 
Committee of Public Health, of which Dr. Gas- 
ton has been a member since its appointment. 

In 1876 a bill, originating with the State Medi- 
cal Association, "To regulate the practice of 
medicine in the State of Alabama," was brought 
before the General Assembly. It had been the 
subject of consideration at several sessions of the 
Association, and Dr. Gaston, with several other 
members of the profession, was very active in 
promoting its passage through the Legislature. 
He appeared, with Drs. Weatherly and Michel, 
before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, 
and a select committee of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, and addressed both in explanation 
and support of the bill while it was under con- 
sideration, and thus contributed very materially 
to its final enactment. During its passage 
through the Legislature, the bill was subjected to 
several amendments, and finally became a law 
on the last day of the session. By this Act the 
Medical Association was invested by the State 
with privileges and powers which made it possi- 
ble for the first time in the history of American 
legislation for the medical profession itself to de- 
termine the qualifications of its own members. 
It provides for an authorized Board of Medical 
Examiners, consisting of the Board of Censors 
of the Medical Association and the Boards of 
Censors of the several county medical societies, 
from whom every person proposing to practise 
medicine after the passage of the Act must ob- 
tain a certificate of qualification; that the stand- 
ard of qualifications required shall be deter- 
mined by the Medical Association of the State; 
that the certificates of qualification shall be en- 
dorsed by the probate judge of the county in 
which the person resides, and a register kept of 



no 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



licensed practitioners of medicine; that viola- 
tions of the provisions of the Act shall be pun- 
ishable by fine or imprisonment; and that none 
of its provisions shall apply to females engaged 
in the practice of midwifery alone. An excep- 
tion is made of persons proposing to practise 
some irregular system of medicine, who must, 
however, obtain from some authorized Board of 
Medical Examiners a diploma or certificate of 
qualification in anatomy, physiology, chemistry 
and the mechanism of labor before being per- 
mitted to practise. 

Dr. Gaston has for many years conducted an 
extensive and successful general practice, and 
among his more important cases may be men- 
tioned a number of successful exsectiont, of the 
elbow and shoulder joints, operations for stran- 
gulated inguinal hernia, exsection of hip-joint for 
hip joint disease of ten years' standing, with 
complete bony anchylosis of the joint — a condi- 
tion which obtained in only one of Professor 
Say;e's reported cases complete recovery with 
restored general health, a strong limb and ample 
motion at hip-joint; nephrotomy for pyone- 
phrosis by deep dissection through lumbar re- 
gion, death sixty-two days after operation, the 
other kidney having become diseased; operation 
for psoas abscess : in this case, which occurred in 
the person of Dr. McLean, of Montgomery 
county, emaciation and prostration, with hectic 
fever, were extreme — an operation by incision 
commencing near the lumbar vertebra and ex- 
tending transversely and deeply down through 
lumbar region to abscess, was devised and success- 
fully executed ; recovery was slow but complete. 
He is a member of the Medical and Surgical 
Society of Montgomery, and its President in 
1874; a member of the Medical Association of 
the State of Alabama; was its annual orator in 
1867, and is a Censor and a member of the 
Committee of Public Health; a member of the 
American Medical Association, and was a mem- 
ber of its Section of State Medicine and Public 
Hygiene, 1875-76. He is also an alderman of 
the city of Montgomery, having been elected by 
the City Council to fill a vacancy caused by res- 
ignation. The medical profession in Mont- 



gomery is exceptional in the harmony and good 
feeiing that prevails among all its members. 
Unlike most professional communities, there 
are no cliques and coteries among them, but 
mutual respect and the heartiest good will per- 
meates the whole body. The most intimate 
friends of each are to be found inside the profes- 
sion, and they form a veritable "band of bro- 
thers," with objects and interests in common. 
Of this happy family Dr. Gaston is one of the 
most favored, having by his conspicuous ability, 
high character and genial disposition, gained 
the high esteem and warm personal regard of his 
fellow-practitioners. He occupies the highest 
rank in his profession, both in the State at large 
and in Montgomery, where he is a leading 
surgeon, and commands probably the largest 
general practice. He has always taken a very 
conspicuous part in advancing the interests of 
the State Medical Association, and has largely 
contributed to the prosperity of the Montgomery 
Medical and Surgical Society. 

. Though he has not contributed largely to the 
literature of the profession, some of his papers 
have been of unusual interest. His article on 
the "Medico-legal evidence of Independent Life 
in a new-born child " has placed a very impor- 
tant question on correct physiological grounds, 
and must have the effect of establishing hereaf- 
ter a different ruling in the higher courts of law 
on this interesting and important subject. Well 
and extensively read, he possesses a vast fund of 
varied information on every subject, and his 
clear analytical mind grasps the most abstruse 
questions with great readiness. As a speaker he 
is clear, concise and energetic, and although lit- 
tle accustomed to debate, he has at times aston- 
ished his hearers by the clearness and closeness 
of his reasoning, as well as by the w r ell-chosen 
and forcible language with which his ideas were 
clothed. Of inflexible honor and integrity, 
high-minded, generous and warm-hearted) he is 
honored and beloved by a large circle of friends 
in all parts of the South. He was married No- 
vember nth, 1857, to Sally J. Torrence, daugh- 
ter of James G. Torrence, a successful planter of 
Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, and has 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



three children. His eldest son, Bernard Gaston, 
is a student at the Bellevue High School, near 
Lynchburg, Va., and his two daughters reside 
with their parents in Montgomery. 



PROFESSOR CHAILLE. 




Louisiana. 

Stanford emerson chaille was 

born at Natchez, Miss., July 9th, 1830. 
''■'' The Chaille family is of Huguenot de- 
=>9 scent. Mo'iee or Pierre Chaille, a 
& Huguenot refugee from La Rochelle 
after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes, emi- 
grated to America in the early part of the 
eighteenth century. He settled on the Eastern 
Shore of Maryland, and from him are descended 
all the members of the family of that name in 
this country. His son, Moses Chaille, married 
Mary Allen, of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, 
and their son, Colonel Peter Chaille, whose wife 
was Comfort Houston, was a prominent official 
in the Revolutionary war, in which many other 
members of the family also took an active part. 
Peter Chaille was one of the sixty-two members 
of the "Association of the Freemen of Mary- 
land," which, at the early date of July 26th, 
1775, pledged themselves to aid Massachusetts 
and other colonies to resist British oppression, 
and, by public proclamation, summoned their 
fellow-citizens to unite with them in measures 
of resistance and defence, and to maintain pub- 
lic order. To not less than one-fourth of the 
families of these sixty-two patriots, Colonel 
Chaille's great-grandson, Dr. Chaille, is allied 
by blood or marriage; and to this honorable 
historic roll is signed the names of three other 
of his immediate ancestral families, the Handys, 
Quintons and Dashiells. 

On January 6th, 1776, Peter Chaille became 
Colonel of the First Battalion from Worcester 
county, Maryland. In 1776 he was also a mem- 
ber of Maryland's first convention, and he sub- 
sequently became a member of Maryland's 
Legislature. His wife, Comfort Houston, was 



a descendant of the Quintons, another distin- 
guished Huguenot family, from which, as also 
from the Handy family, is likewise descended 
Mrs. Governor Nicholls, of Louisiana. William 
Chaille, the son of Colonel Peter Chaille, mar- 
ried Anna Handy, of the Eastern Shore of 
Maryland, and their son, William H. Chaille, 
was the father of the subject of this sketch. He 
married Mary Stanford, daughter of Dr. Clem- 
ent Stanford and Anna Dashiell, and niece of 
Hon. Richard Stanford, who was a member 
of Congress from North Carolina from 1797 to 
1816, and son of Richard Stanford, of Vienna, 
Maryland. 

Stanford E. Chaille was educated at Phillips' 
Academy, South Andover, Mass., from whence 
he graduated in 1847. He then entered Har- 
vard College, taking the degree of A. B. in 1851 
and A. M. in 1854. In 1851 he settled in New 
Orleans, and was resident student in the New 
Orleans Charity Hospital from 1851 to 1853. 
His medical education was acquired in the Medi- 
cal Department of the University of Louisiana, 
whence he graduated M. D. in 1S53. In that 
year he commenced the practice of his profes- 
sion in New Orleans, and was appointed Resi- 
dent Physician of the United States Marine 
Hospital, which position he retained for one 
year, and then became Resident Physician and 
part proprietor of the Circus Street Hospital, in 
association with Dr. Armand Mercier, one of the 
leading surgeons in New Orleans. In 1857 he 
became co-editor and proprietor of the New 
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, and so 
continued until 1868. In 1858 he was appointed 
Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical De- 
partment of the University of Louisiana. In 
i860 he visited Europe and became the student 
of M. Claude Bernard, the distinguished physi- 
ologist, spending three years in study in Paris 
and other cities. In February, 1S62, he re- 
ceived the appointment of Acting Surgeon-Gen- 
eral of Louisiana, and on May 12th, 1862, was 
commissioned Surgeon in the Confederate States 
army. He was Medical Inspector of the Army 
of Tennessee, on the staff of General Braxton 
Bragg, upon whom he was in immediate per- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



sonal attendance during the years 1862-63. 
After his resignation he became Surgeon-in- 
charge of a hospital at Atlanta, 1S63-64, and 
of the Ocmulgee Hospital, Macon, Ga., 1864-65. 
The war over, he returned to New Orleans and 
was appointed Lecturer on Obstetrics in the 
Medical Department of the University of Louis- 
iana. In 1866 he again visited Europe. In 
1 86 7 he accepted the chair of Physiology and 
Pathological Anatomy in the Louisiana Uni- 
versity, and in 1876 he was appointed Professor 
of Obstetrics in the same institution, but, re- 
signing that position, was unanimously reap- 
pointed to fill his previous chair — that of Physi- 
ology and Pathological Anatomy — which he 
holds at the present time. In December, 187S, 
he was appointed by Congress one of the twelve 
experts authorized to investigate the yellow fever 
epidemic of 1878, and was elected Secretary of 
the Board of which Dr. John M. Wood worth, 
Surgeon-General of the United States Marine 
Hospital Service, was President. In 1879 ne 
was appointed by the National Board of Health 
a member of, and served as President of, the 
United States Havana Yellow Fever Commis- 
sion. The subjects of investigation, as ordered 
in official instructions, were: the condition of 
the principal ports in Cuba from which shipments 
are made to the United States; the endemicity 
of yellow fever in Cuba and the cause of this 
endemicity; the actual sanitary condition of 
Havana, Matanzas and the principal ports of 
Cuba; how may the sanitary condition be im- 
proved, or the unsanitary condition ameliorated? 
what can and should be done to prevent the in- 
troduction of the cause of yellow fever into the 
shipping of Matanzas, Havana and other Cuban 
ports? These were intrusted to a committee 
of which Colonel T. S. Hardee was a member 
and "Dr. Chaille Chairman. Experiments upon 
the transmission of yellow fever poison to ani- 
mals; microscopic examination by microphoto- 
graphy of the blood in various stages of yellow 
fever; and microscopic examination of the patho- 
logical anatomy of yellow fever, were intrusted 
to a committee composed of Dr. Sternberg, of 
the United States army, Secretary of the com- 



mission, and Dr. Guiteres, of Philadelphia. An 
auxiliary commission, composed of twelve dis- 
tinguished medical men of Cuba, was appointed 
by the Captain-General to aid in the investiga- 
tion. An immense quantity of data was gathered 
and information obtained from not less than 
forty-five places in Cuba, including the fifteen 
ports of entry. It was ascertained that the dis- 
ease has prevailed in Havana every year since 
1761, and it is alleged it was imported originally 
from Vera Cruz. It was further determined 
that there is no town of any importance in Cuba 
where it is not usual for yellow fever to prevail. 
The endemic prevalence of yellow fever is most 
marked in those towns of Cuba which have ex- 
perienced the greatest commercial increase ; 
which have the most numerous unacclimated 
population ; the least exposure to wind ; where 
the houses are crowded together and densely 
inhabited ; and filth exists in the greatest quan- 
tity. The actual sanitary condition of Havana 
and other Cuban towns is very bad, a fact indi- 
cated by the high death-rate, which ranges from 
forty to fifty per 1000 inhabitants per annum. 
The water supply is not particularly defective in 
quality, but is insufficient in quantity. Hygienic 
laws are so grossly violated that many causes 
are in operation to pollute the soil, air and har- 
bors. It is to be remembered that the violation 
of hygienic laws will be followed by more seri- 
ous results, the warmer the climate and the 
denser the population, the maximum of which 
condition is to be found in Cuba. The people 
must be provided with the means to become en- 
lightened in hygienic principles, and not only 
have the knowledge but the material resources 
to enable them to carry out the measures neces- 
sary to the application of a comprehensive hy- 
gienic system. Until these reforms are accom- 
plished, a consummation which the present 
generation of sanitarians will not live to witness, 
Havana will continue to be a source of constant 
danger to every vessel entering that port and to 
every Southern port to which these vessels sail 
during the warm season. The result of investi- 
gations proved that the poison did not emanate 
from the water of the harbor, but from the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



shore, and that yellow fever does not originate 
on board ships. There are no practical means 
to keep yellow fever out of the shipping, except 
to exclude the ships from the infested ports. 
Important palliate measures can be used to 
protect the shipping, but the execution depends 
to a certain extent upon the rigid enforcement 
in the ports of Cuba of such provisions as are 
contained in the National Quarantine law of the 
United States. Experiments were made on not 
less than a dozen different species of bipeds and 
quadrupeds, white-haired and white-feathered, 
of American birth and imported from New York. 
These animals were lowered and fed in the holds 
of vessels known to be infested. The blood of 
yellow fever patients in various stages of the 
disease was injected into them. They were fed 
on black vomit and other substances eliminated 
from the patients. The animals were also made 
to sleep on blankets, etc., from the beds where 
yellow fever patients had died. Various other 
means were adopted to infect the animals with 
the disease, but in not a single case was yellow 
fever developed in an animal. Photographs 
were taken of the blood corpuscles in the blood 
of persons sick with yellow fever, and at all 
stages of the disease. The only peculiarity ob- 
served was the presence of certain granules in 
the white corpuscles, but it is not certain that 
these may not be presented by blood in other 
diseases. Air from infected localities, such as 
military hospitals, holds of ships, was examined. 
Innumerable forms of microscopic animal and 
vegetable life were perceived, but nothing con- 
sidered distinctive, or suspicious, except peculiar 
crystals never before described. Tissues of the 
human body, obtained promptly after death 
from yellow fever, were examined, properly pre- 
served, and brought to the United States to be 
examined by Dr. Woodward, of the United 
States army, the most skilful expert in patho- 
logical anatomy in this country. The porous 
coral formation, which readily absorbs moisture, 
the lack of elevation of the dwelling-houses, 
defective privy and sewage system, are among 
the morbid causes which militate against the 
health of Havana. 



Dr. Chaille is a member of the American 
Medical Association ; a member of the American 
Public Health Association ; associate fellow of 
the College of Physicians, Philadelphia ; honor- 
ary member of the Medical and Chirurgical 
Faculty of Maryland ; corresponding member of 
the Academy de Ciencias, etc., Habana, Cuba; 
Chairman of the Committee on State Medicine in 
the Louisiana State Medical Society, and in the 
Orleans Parish Society. He was also honor- 
ary member of the International Medical Con- 
gress held in Philadelphia in 1876, and received 
from the Centennial Medical Commission the 
high compliment of being chosen by it one of 
the ten physicians selected from the whole 
United States to address the Medical Congress. 

Dr. Chaille has devoted much time and labor 
to the consideration and preparation of vital 
statistics in reference to public hygiene, and the 
results of his labors have attracted much atten- 
tion, both at home and abroad. In January, 
1870, he published "Life and Death in New 
Orleans, from 1787 to 1869; more especially 
during the five years — 1856 to i860," an elabor- 
ate paper, in which he first drew prominent 
attention to the unhealthy character of the city 
of New Orleans, and the crying need for its 
sanitary reformation. He followed this in July, 
1870, by " The Yellow Fever ; Sanitary Condi- 
tion and Vital Statistics of New Orleans, during 
its Military Occupation in the four years 
1862-65," in which, while admitting the com- 
parative superiority of the so-called " impreg- 
nable war quarantine," he successfully combats 
the often repeated assertion that New Orleans was 
practically exempt from yellow fever during its 
occupation by the Federal troops, from 1862 to 
1865. In July, 1874, he published a third 
article, "The Vital Statistics of New Orleans, 
from 1769 to 1874; " and especially the five fears 
succeeding the war — 1866-70. This, with the 
two former papers, completed the subject. In 
April, 1S72, he discussed at length, in the 
columns of the New Orleans Sunday Times, the 
laws of population as to voters, in which he 
clearly demonstrated that the colored male 
voters were, from corrupt partisan motives, at 



ii4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



that time much over-registered, and that the 
whites, especially the foreign born, were, from like 
motives, much under-registered. As a student of 
vital, not of political statistics, Dr. Chaille was 
forced incidentally to examine the latter, as illus- 
trative of the number of the population — a num- 
ber indispensable to mortality statistics. He 
investigated all the statistical facts bearing on 
the political statistics of Louisiana in 1874, and 
published them, under the title of "Vital Statis- 
tics applied to the Military-reconstruction Poli- 
tics of Louisiana." His facts were, without 
exception, gained from officials of the Republi- 
can party, and he shows that, whereas the United 
States census reported that Louisiana had about 
87,000 colored males of twenty-one years of 
age and over, these 87,000, in spite of the num- 
ber necessarily and unavoidably absent from 
sickness and other causes, succeeded in being 
registered as 90,781. During the year of the 
census, 1870, it was found that while 86,913 
colored males registered more than 90,000 
voters, yet 87,066 white males only registered 
about 55,000 voters, and yet the Republican 
party confidently charged that the colored had, 
and the whites had not, been intimidated. He 
adds, "these remarkable facts of political multi- 
plication cannot be equalled outside of the 
reconstructed States." In January, 1S75, Dr. 
Chaille gave his testimony before a committee 
of Congress as to the vital statistics and voters 
of Louisiana and New Orleans. A Republican 
majority had been claimed on the sole grounds 
that the colored population was greatly in excess 
of the white. This claim was based on the fact 
that in 1874 an excess of 15,000 colored over 
white voters was registered, and on this 15,000 
excess, with the addition of 5,000 white votes 
claimed, it was confidently asserted that "a fair 
and peaceable election " should give the Republi- 
cans from 20,000 to 25,000 majority. Vital 
statistics derived exclusively from the published 
reports of Republican officials thoroughly re- 
fute these claims, and prove beyond discussion 
either that the registration of 1874 was a 
fraud (as were all its predecessors from 1868) or 
that the United States census of 1870 was a 



fraud ; while Dr. Chaille shows conclusively 
the comparative correctness of the latter. On 
the 13th of January, 1877, Dr. Chaille appeared 
before the committee of the House of Represent- 
atives on Louisiana affairs, of which Hon. W. R. 
Morrison was chairman, and was examined with 
reference to the intimidation charged, and the 
relative proportion of white to the colored 
voters in Louisiana during the Presidential elec- 
tion of 1876, as shown by statistical data 
derived from Republican official reports. He 
exposed the absurdity of the charge of wholesale 
murder and intimidation for political reasons 
made by the authority of General Sheridan and 
of the President's Visiting Committee, in the 
face of the unusually large increase in the 
colored population, reported by the State cen- 
sus of 1875. He pointed out that there was no 
data to justify the belief that there was then in 
Louisiana any material majority of the colored 
over the white citizens, and called attention to 
the incredible assertion of the Registrar of Voters 
that out of 185,000 registrable colored voters in 
Louisiana, he had registered 207,622 colored 
voters. The Hon. W. Townsend, one of the 
Republican members of the committee, at the 
conclusion of the examination, remarked : " I 
will not undertake to dispute your statements, 
and I do not question the accuracy of the state- 
ments in your report " — conclusive evidence that 
Dr. Chaille's facts and figures were unimpeach- 
able. Before the International Medical Con- 
gress, which met in Philadelphia in 1876. Dr. 
Chaille delivered a Centennial address on the 
"Origin and Progress of Medical Jurisprudence, 
1776 to 1S76," which was reprinted from 
the "Transactions of the International Medical 
Congress," for the benefit of the legal and med- 
ical professions in the United States. It consists 
of a succinct historical sketch of the develop- 
ment of medical jurisprudence in different 
nations, from the earliest times to the present, 
followed by the consideration of the part taken 
by the United States in the general progress of 
that science. Five inquiries are instituted and 
discussed, viz. : What have our laws done to 
apply medical knowledge to the administration 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



"5 



of justice? What have our medical colleges 
done to cultivate and disseminate a knowledge 
of medical jurisprudence ? What new facts have 
Americans added by original research to the 
common stock of medico-legal science ? What 
culture of medico-legal science is evinced by our 
literature? What illustrations of medico-legal 
progress are to be found in the institutions, laws 
and judicial decisions of our States? — and the 
measures proposed to correct our medico-legal 
evils are described. A voluminous bibliograph- 
ical appendix is added, consisting of a biblio- 
graphical record of the medico-legal literature 
of Italy, Germany, France and Great Britain, 
and a contribution to the Bibliography of 
American Medical Jurisprudence ; the whole 
arranged chronologically to illustrate the origin 
and progress of medico-legal science. Ample 
and comprehensive notes are added, and the 
address, which created much attention and dis- 
cussion at the time, does infinite credit to the 
research and erudition of its accomplished 
author. We have only space for the concluding 
paragraphs. 

" Has State Medicine become necessary to a 
nation's progress in civilization ? Can services 
essential to the welfare of a people be rendered 
by other than medical officers? Who will deny 
that no well-governed State can dispense with 
medical instructors ; with physicians in charge 
of its hospitals and asylums ; with medico-legal 
experts ; "with inspectors to watch over the exe- 
cution of proper laws for prohibiting quackery 
and the sale of quack, fceticidal, poisonous, and 
adulterated drugs and food, and also to certify 
to every death with its cause, after personal ex- 
amination ; with registrars of vital statistics to 
record not only marriages, births, and deaths, 
but also prevailing diseases with their causes, 
and, finally, with sanitary officers to guard the 
public health by vaccination, quarantine, seclu- 
sion, disinfection, and all known means? While 
such services to the State would now confer in- 
calculable benefits, these are not a tithe of those 
which the progress of medical science assures 
the future. But a patchwork of ill-digested laws 
cannot secure these benefits, nor mere prac- 



titioners of medicine render these services. To 
this end a well-organized system of State Medi- 
cine, administered by specially educated medical 
men, is indispensable ; and, however discourag- 
ing the difficulties, educational, legal, and polit- 
ical, in our path, these must be eventually over- 
come, or our country prove a laggard in the 
triumphant march which civilization, led by the 
hand of science, is now treading. One of these 
difficulties, an increase of officials, dangerous to 
a republic, repugnant to the people, is more 
serious in appearance than in reality ; for, our 
present posts for coroners, and for sanitary and 
other medical officers, would suffice for at least 
the initiation of an organized system of State 
Medicine. Far more serious difficulties are pre- 
sented by those causes which now so often fill 
these posts with unqualified men by the con- 
tinual elections and 'rotations in office,' 
through which the people, with suicidal folly, 
eliminate from public service responsible and 
efficient servants. If the demoralizing political 
principle, 'to the victors belong the spoils,' is 
to continue its mastery over the virtue and in- 
telligence of a great people, then all hope of 
efficiency in any system of State Medicine, as 
well as in every public service which requires 
special skill and experience, must be abandoned. 
But if the cardinal maxim of our political faith 
be well founded, if it be true that a Republican 
government is better adapted than any other to 
secure the greatest good to the greatest number, 
then, though public enlightenment develop 
slowly, the day must come at last when all im- 
pediments will be overthrown and an efficient 
system of State Medicine be organized by our 
laws. This progress, as all others, must pass 
through stages of evolution, and expediency 
force the acceptance, as now, of mere make- 
shifts ; but this conviction should not deter the 
attempt to measure the full extent of our defects 
and of our needs, nor prevent us, while con 1 
scious that we are but scratching the surface of 
great evils, from striving to direct our efforts to 
their very root." Having for years advocated 
mountain resorts as justifying the best hope for 
arresting incipient consumption, Dr. Chaille, in 



n6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



April, 1878, contributed a paper to the New 
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, founded 
on his own personal experience, on the Amer- 
ican Mountain Sanitarium for Consumption, in 
which he presents some of the evidence which 
served to strengthen his conviction of the bene- 
ficial influence in consumption of mountain 
resorts, especially of the Mountain Sanitarium 
at Asheville, N. C. He says: "The benefits 
secured in mountain localities have been as- 
cribed to the greater rarity of the air, causing 
quicker and profounder respiration, a more 
active central as well as capillary circulation, 
and increased excretion with improved appetite 
and nutrition ; to the greater purity of the air 
marked by its greater transparency, freedom 
from dust, and richness in ozone which purifies 
it chemically ; to the greater dryness and in- 
creased electricity of the air; to the larger num- 
ber of sunshiny days, and the intenser heat of • 
the direct rays of the sun, which, conjoined with 
the charming diversity of mountain scenery, 
prompt the invalid to frequent excursions, 
habitual exercise, and life in the open air." . . . 
"The section of country to which I now invite 
attention is in the high regions comprised be- 
tween the Blue Ridge and the great chain of the 
Iron, Smoky, and Unaka Mountains, separating 
North Carolina from Tennessee, where we have 
the culminating portion of the whole chain of 
the Appalachians. Here, for an extent of more 
than 150 miles, the mean elevation of the valley 
from which the mountains rise is more than 
2,000 feet ; scores of summits reaching 6,000 
feet, while the loftiest peaks rise to a height of 
6,700 feet. Asheville, having an elevation of 
2,250 feet, is located in the central part of this 
region, wherein I have passed from three to five 
months annually during the four years 1873, 
1875-76-77. I have made repeated mountain 
excursions, in all directions, and from twenty 
to sixty miles distant from Asheville ; every- 
where I was assured of the comparative immu- 
nity from consumption of all this section, and, 
in most places, my informants denied that the 
native residents ever died of the disease." . . . 



" In concluding this article, I desire it to be 
understood that, while I incline to believe that 
the climatic conditions, which are the results of 
altitude, are important factors in the hygienic 
treatment of consumption, I have not ventured 
to recommend any and all mountains, but only 
such mountain resorts as experience seems to 
have proved beneficial, and as supply proper 
accommodation for invalids. Again, I desire 
it understood that, in advising mountain resorts 
for consumptives, I have had in mind solely 
those in the first stage of the disease ; or those 
who, although long affected, have advanced but 
slowly on the downward road, and still main- 
tain sufficient vigor to spend a large portion of 
time in the open air." 

In February, 1879, Dr. Chaille contributed a 
paper to the Medical Record, entitled "Evo- 
lution and Human Anatomy," which has, per- 
haps, excited as wide-spread interest and atten- 
tion as any of his contributions to science. As 
an example of Dr. Chaille's literary style and 
philosophical opinions, we add a short extract: 
" The descent of man closes with the once start- 
ling assertion that ' man still bears in his bodily 
frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.' 
If this be true, then man's conception of an 
ever-loving and all-merciful God would be based 
on a benevolent reality, rather than on a malev- 
olent fiction ; since man would belong to a risen, 
not to a fallen race, and should exchange a dis- 
couraging belief in his degradation from a per- 
fect parent for an encouraging faith in his own 
progressive development. No one familiar with 
the history of the warfare between science and 
religion will be deterred from investigating the 
proofs of Darwin's assertion, though it is de- 
nounced by biblicists as 'evidently contrary to 
Scripture ; ' for such denunciations recall the 
history of many similar contests, of which three, 
at least, cannot for- the good of mankind be too 
often repeated. The rotundity of the earth was 
denounced for centuries 'as contrary to Scrip- 
ture,' and the believers thereof were cursed and 
punished as ' heretics, infidels, and atheists' — 
until Magelhaens, sailing ever in one direction, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



117 



returned in 15 19 to his point of departure. The 
Copernican doctrine — that the planet of vain- 
glorious man was not the centre of the universe, 
but that the sun was the centre of our system, 
and that the earth moved around this centre, 
not the sun around the earth — was declared in 
16 1 6 by the Cardinals of the Roman Inquisition, 
to be ' absurd, heretical, and contrary to Holy 
Scripture.' The great book which, in 1543, 
first taught this now familiar truth, was con- 
demned to remain on the Roman ' Index Libro- 
rum Prohibitorum,' from 1616 to 1820. For 
advocating this truth, Bruno was burned, Cam- 
panello tortured, Galileo terrified into perjury, 
and Luther and Melancthon joined hands with the 
Pope, uniting Protestantism to Catholicism in 
upholding as Scriptural the woful ancestral 
errors, to the overthrow of which Copernicus 
and Galileo owe their undying fame. For cen- 
turies the creation of ' the heavens and the 
earth ' within six days, was an article of religious 
faith requisite to man's salvation. 

"Even in 1850 the great Christian Scientist, 
Agassiz, deemed it necessary in his geological 
lectures at Harvard, to explain and apologize to 
an audience of college boys for teaching that the 
works of the Creator, buried in the bowels of 
the earth, testified irrefutably that it could not 
have been made within six days; and to defend 
himself against the maledictions hurled against 
him by that pulpit and press, which accepting at 
last the lesson once fiercely denounced, now 
uses his great, but at one time execrated name, 
to wage an equally hopeless battle against the 
doctrine of evolution — -the only doctrine which 
explains to the biologist the Creator's mode of 
action in accord with such well-known facts as : 
that useful animals are burdened with useless 
organs, and harassed -by other animals, useless 
and noxious ; that organs and organisms are 
.modified by, and are adapted to the varying 
conditions of existence ; that use causes develop- 
ment, disuse the atrophy of organs, and thus 
new organisms may appear, while old ones may 
disappear; and that nature's work is done 
through laws simple, uniform, and constant. 



It would be presumed that the marks of man's 
lowly origin, stamped indelibly upon his bodily 
frame, should be familiar to, at least, physicians, 
since they are forced to study human anatomy. 
But, in truth, few physicians, even though skil- 
ful anatomists, are well informed on this subject, 
for the reasons that they pursue anatomy for 
practical purposes, not for philosophical deduc- 
tions ; that they study superficially, if at all, 
comparative anatomy, on which depends the 
significance, so far as evolution is concerned, of 
human anatomy ; and that the indelible marks 
of man's lowly origin are to be found chiefly in 
three directions, of little importance to, and 
therefore little studied by the medical anatomist. 
These three directions are : the anatomy of the 
human being while within the womb — embry- 
ology ; the anatomy cf bodies deviating from 
the common rule — anomalies ; and the anatomy 
of certain parts — rudimentary organs — imperfect 
in and useless to man, but perfect in and useful 
to lower animals. In these three neglected de- 
partments of anatomy will be found in abund- 
ance the indelible marks of man's lowdy origin." 

" ' Man, in action how like an angel ! 

in apprehension how like a God ! . . . . the 
paragon of animals,' originates, not as our an- 
cestors taught, from a homunculus or diminutive 
baby, but from a little ovule or cell, as does a 
fish, frog, snake, bird and dog; it is about one- 
one hundred and twenty-fifth of an inch in 
diameter, and apparently differs in no respect 
from the ovules of other animals. In the hatch- 
ing of this microscopic egg it successively pre- 
sents in striking particulars the same forms of 
animal life disclosed in the successive strata of 
geology, and taught in our school-books as the 
five progressive steps from the lowest to the 
highest vertebrates ; for the human embryo, at 
first invertebrate, subsequently assumes, in many 
things, the organization of a fish, an amphibian, 
a reptile, and a mammal, while becoming man- 
like — and yet has never ceased to be a human 
being. At the third week of hatching, this 
future man is a gelatinous worm-like body, and 
even at the eighth week can scarcely be distill- 



n8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



guished from the embryo of a dog." 

"Finally the poetical seven stages of man's life 
outside the womb are even surpassed by those 
within it, as numbered by embryologists. The 
most striking of these embryonic stages are the 
Ascidian, the Amphioxian, the Piscine, the 
Reptilian, the Mammalian, the Quadrumanous 
and the Human. What theory, other than 
evolution, offers even an attempt to rationally ex- 
plain the significance of these stages, and of the 

facts now presented?" "Comparative 

anatomy has already acquired sufficient knowl- 
edge to increase the long list now given of the 
indelible marks of man's lowly origin. As the 
future perfects this knowledge not only will 
there be many important additions, but a 
brighter light will be thrown on the facts herein 
presented. However instructive such detailed 
facts may be, yet only a fraction of the evi- 
dence in favor of evolution depends on human 
anatomy ; and the general facts are as decisive 
as are details to him thoroughly imbued with a 
conviction of the simplicity, uniformity and 
constancy of nature's laws. For chemistry 
teaches that man's chemical, microscopy that 
his histological, morphology that his homologi- 
cal structure, agrees with the whole animal king- 
dom. Palaeontology has stamped in permanent 
letters of stone the same succession of animal 
life, impressed in fleeting hours on the offspring 
within the womb of every mother ; and com- 
parative anatomy, physiology and pathology 
present innumerable general as well as special 
facts to prove — that man, though ultimately 
formed of those chemical elements, which con- 
stitute in part ' the dust of the ground,' was not 
formed directly out of these lowly dead inorgan- 
ics, but had his immediate origin from the very 
highest organic living matter." 

Dr. Chaille has been twice married. In 1857 
he married Laura Elleanor, daughter of Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel John Mountfort, United States 
army; she died in 185S. In 1S63 he married 
Mary Louisa, daughter of Leroy Napier, Esq., 
of Macon, Ga.. who died in 1873. He ' las one 
child, Mary Laura Chaille, daughter of his first 
wife. 




GENERAL P. G. T. BEAUREGARD. 

Louisiana. 

IERRE GUSTAVE TOUTANT BEAU- 
REGARD was born in the parish of 
St. Bernard, near New Orleans, La., 
May 28th, 1S18. The Beauregard 
^ family trace their genealogy back to 
' Tider, an illustrious Welshman, who headed a 
party in opposition to Edward the First of Eng- 
land, and having been defeated sought refuge in 
France in the year 1270. He was favorably re- 
ceived by Philip IV., surnamed the Fair, and 
married Mdlle. de Lafayette, a lady attendant 
upon Madame Marguerite, sister of Philip the 
Fair. When the bitter war, then raging between 
France and England, was concluded by the 
marriage of King Edward and Marguerite of 
France. Tider followed the new queen to Eng- 
land, and, though distrusted by the king, 
obtained, through the influence of the queen, a 
government post in Saintonge. After the death 
of Marguerite, however, he incurred the dis- 
pleasure of the king and was compelled again to 
seek refuge in France, where he lived on a pen- 
sion left to his wife by the deceased queen. He 
left four children, of whom Marc, the eldest, 
having returned to England and obtained a 
government appointment in one of the dependen- 
cies of the English Crown, changed his name to 
that of Toutank. In the course of time the final 
" k" became "/," and thus the present name 
of Toutant. Toutant remained the name of the 
family for a long series of years, probably three 
centuries, when one of its male members dying 
left an only daughter who married a Sieur Paix 
de Beauregard, and hence the family name — 
Toutant de Beauregard. General Beauregard is 
a direct lineal descendant of the Sieur Paix de 
Beauregard ; at what time the "de" was dropped 
is not known. The first of the family to visit 
Louisiana was Jacques Toutant de Beauregard, 
who was commandant of a flotilla which was 
sent to the colony in the reign of Louis XIV., 
and for services rendered he received the " Cross 
of St. Louis." He subsequently settled in 
Louisiana, where he married Magdeleiue Carrier, 








- ,*? 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



119 



and had three sons. Louis Toutant Beauregard, 
one of his sons, became a sugar-planter in the 
parish of St. Bernard and married Victoire 
Dueros, the daughter of a prominent planter 
who held offices of trust under the French and 
Spanish governments of Louisiana ; he had one 
daughter and two sons. The younger of these 
sons, Jacques Toutant Beauregard, married in 
1808, Helene Judith de Reggio, daughter of a 
well-known planter of the parish of St. Bernard, 
by whom he had several children, the third of 
whom, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, is 
the subject of this sketch. On his mother's side 
General Beauregard is a descendant of the Dukes 
of Reggio and Modena and consequently of the 
noble house of Este. His maternal great- 
grandfather was the Chevalier de Reggio, a 
kinsman of the reigning dukes, who, accom- 
panying his friend, the Duke de Richelieu, to 
the siege of Berg-ap-Zoom, so distinguished 
himself that he was given a captaincy (in those 
days a high position) in the French army, by 
Louis XV., and was sent to Louisiana with his 
company. When, under Charles III., Louisiana 
passed to the Spanish Crown, the Chevalier de 
Reggio was made "Alferez Real." He married 
Miss Fleurian and had two sons, the second of 
whom, Louis Chevalier de Reggio, married 
Louise Judith Olivier de Vezin, and died leav- 
ing two sons and one daughter ; the latter sub- 
sequently became the wife of Jacques Toutant 
Beauregard and the mother of General Beaure- 
gard. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was 
sent, at eleven' years of age, to New York city 
for his education, and in 1829 became a pupil 
at the private school of Peugnet Brothers, both 
of whom were ex-captains of the French service, 
one a graduate of the Polytechnic School, and 
the other of the Cavalry School at Saumur ; this 
was known as the "French School," and 
obtained a great reputation more particularly as 
a commercial and mathematical school. 

In January, 1834, he went to West Point to be 
prepared for the Military Academy, and having 
received his appointment as a cadet, entered 
that celebrated institution in June, 1834. He 
was second in his cla:s during the four years he 



remained at West Point, and graduated thence 
July 1st, 1838, second in a class of forty-five 
graduates, at the age of twenty. According to 
the West Point regulations those five who take 
the highest honors are entitled to select that arm 
of the service to which they desire to be ap- 
pointed. Beauregard, who stood at the head of 
his class in strategy and tactics, selected the En- 
gineer corps, and was accordingly appointed 
Second Lieutenant of Engineers in the United 
States Army, July 7th, 1838. He was promoted 
to a first lieutenancy, June 16th, 1839. At the 
breaking out of the war with Mexico he was 
among the first to apply to the War Department 
to be assigned to active duty. In the winter of 
1846-47 he fortified Tampico according to the 
plans agreed upon by Captain J. G. Barnard, of 
the United States Engineers, and himself. In 
March, 1847, he joined the expedition under 
General Winfield Scott against the City of Mex- 
ico. He distinguished himself at the siege of 
Vera Cruz, where he selected the sites of most 
of the batteries, which reduced that city after 
a siege of about two weeks ; in reconnoissances 
before the battle of Cerro Gordo, and in the bat- 
tles of the valley of Mexico, for which he was 
twice brevetted for gallant and meritorious ser- 
vices — once for Contreras and Cherubusco, and 
again for Chapultepec and the Garita of Belen, 
being twice wounded at the assault on the latter. 
At a council of general officers held at Pieded, 
September nth, 1S47, he advocated in opposi- 
tion to most of the other officers present, an at-, 
tack on Mexico by the western approaches, 
a plan which was finally adopted. On his return 
from Mexico, Beauregard, now a Major by bre- 
vet, resumed his duties in the Engineer service, 
being stationed at New Orleans, where, besides 
his military duties, he was intrusted with the su- 
perintendence of the construction of the New 
Orleans Custom House and Marine Hospital. 
He was promoted Captain of Engineers March 
3d, 1853, an d remained in charge of the Missis- 
sippi defences in Louisiana until November, 
i860, when he was selected by President Bu- 
chanan as Superintendent of West Point Military 
Academy. He was appointed November 20th, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



i860, and assumed the duties of that position 
early in January, 1861, with the rank of Colonel. 
Owing to political complications and the seces- 
sion of Louisiana, he resigned his commission in 
the army of the United States, February 20th, 
1861, and returned to cast his lot with that of 
his native State, where his home and kindred 
were. Whether she was right or wrong he never 
stopped to consider; her call was to him that of 
a beloved mother appealing to a son for help in 
a moment of distress. His attachment to the 
Union was great, but to Louisiana it was greater, 
and the fact of her being apparently on the 
weaker side, was to his chivalrous nature an ad- 
ditional claim on his devotion. He was at once 
summoned to Montgomery, Ala., where the 
Provisional Government of the Confederate 
States was in session, and on March 1st was made 
Brigadier-General in the Confederate States 
Army, the first in that service. He expected to 
have returned at once to New Orleans to defend 
it against the Federal forces, but was ordered to 
Charleston, S. C. Soon after the inauguration 
of Abraham Lincoln, commissioners from the 
Confederate Government at Montgomery pro- 
ceeded to Washington, D. C, to urge a peacea- 
ble separation and to negotiate for the transfer 
of Government property, and in particular for 
the removal of the Federal garrisons from Forts 
Pickens and Sumter, S. C. They were told by 
Secretary Seward that to treat with them offi- 
cially might embarrass Lincoln's administration, 
but they were assured through an intermediate 
party that the military status of the South would 
be undisturbed, and Fort Sumter evacuated. 
These assurances proved treacherous, and were 
only a trick to gain time for collecting arma- 
ments and preparing war measures against the 
South. On 8th April, 1861, an expedition 
started from New York to convey, as was an- 
nounced, "provisions to the starving garrison" 
of Sumter, but it consisted of no less than 
eleven vessels with an aggregate of 285 guns and 
2,400 men. The Federal Government by its 
treachery compelled the South to take the initia- 
tory step of resistance, and thus give it the color 
of commencing the war. If the first shot was 



fired by the South, the first military aggression 
that provoked it was given by the North, upon 
whom rests the true responsibility of the war. 
General Beauregard, on assuming the command 
at Charleston, demanded from Major Anderson 
the evacuation of Fort Sumter, offering him the 
honorable terms of transferring his garrison to 
any post in the United States he might desire, 
and to salute his flag on taking it down. Major 
Anderson refused immediate surrender, and 
General Beauregard then made a proposal to ab- 
stain from opening fire on the fort provided 
Major Anderson would name the time at which 
he would evacuate, and agree in the meantime 
not to use arms against the Confederates. The 
Federal commander replied by agreeing to evacu- 
ate Fort Sumter on 15th April, unless in the 
meantime he should receive additional supplies. 
As the fleet above mentioned with supplies and 
reinforcements was known to be off the harbor, 
this was not considered satisfactory, and General 
Beauregard sent an intimation at 3.30 a. m., 
April 1 2th, that, unless his terms were complied 
with, he would open fire in one hour's time. 
The first shot was fired at 4.30 a. m., and after 
thirty-three hours' bombardment the fort was 
reduced, April 13th, 1S61, the Federal fleet 
lying at anchor in the distance during the action 
without firing a gun.- 

One remarkable feature connected with the 
reduction of Fort Sumter was the first use in 
naval warfare of an iron-clad battery. When 
General Beauregard arrived at Charleston to as- 
sume command of the forces, he found under 
construction a rough floating battery made of 
palmetto logs, which it was intended to plate 
with sheets of rolled iron from one and a half to 
two inches thick. In spite of the ridicule which 
met the inventor of this then novel engine of 
war, General Beauregard approved of the design, 
provided the means for its completion, and 
placed the battery in a position which could not 
be reached effectively by the land batteries, and 
it played an important part in that brief drama 
of thirty-three hours, receiving many shots with- 
out any serious injury. From this sprang the 
" Merrimac," plated and roofed with two layers 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of railroad iron, which first attracted the atten- 
tion of the civilized world to the important 
change the iron-plating or armor would thence- 
forth create in naval architecture and armaments. 
In this attack on Fort Sumter was also used an 
iron-clad land battery, built of heavy timbers, 
covered with a layer of railroad iron, the rails 
well fitted into each other, presenting an inclined 
smooth surface of about thirty-five degrees to the 
fire of Fort Sumter. This battery took an active 
part in the bombardment, and was struck several 
times, but remained practically uninjured to the 
end of the fight. There also was used the first 
rifled cannon fired in America. 

Early in May, 1861, a proposition was made 
to the Confederate Government by John Fraser 
& Co., of Charleston, S. C, to buy, through 
their partner in Liverpool, six large steamers 
then for sale by the East India Company, for 
whom they had been just built, in consequence 
of the refusal of the British Government to 
renew its charter. These steamers were of the 
largest size and strongest construction, and 
heavily armed, being intended for the defence 
of the East India Company's possessions, and it 
was proposed to accept payment in cotton. It 
was suggested that these steamers should be im- 
mediately manned and equipped to transport suf- 
ficient cotton for their purchase, and as much 
more as was practicable, to Europe; and as the 
United States were not then prepared to enforce 
a blockade of the Southern ports, it was thought 
this could very easily be accomplished. Subse- 
quently the vessels could be used as "cruisers," 
for which they were especially adapted, to de- 
stroy the commerce of the United States. 
General Beauregard introduced the representa- 
tive of the firm to the Secretary of War at Mont- 
gomery, strongly urging the acceptance of the 
proposition "as a war measure." The offer 
was, however, declined by the Confederate 
Government, apparently for the reason that the 
vessels would not be required, as it was not be- 
lieved that the war would last more than two or 
three months. 

General Beauregard was impressed, from the 
first, with the conviction that a long and terrible 



war was inevitable, and therefore realized the 
necessity of being prepared. A large supply of 
cotton in Europe would have supplied the Con- 
federacy with the "sinews of war," and six 
strong and fast steamers, under such officers as 
Semmes and others subsequently proved them- 
selves to be, would have driven the commerce 
of the United States from all the seas of the 
globe. 

Called for by the unanimous voice of the South- 
ern people, General Beauregard was ordered, June 
2d, 1861, to take command of the main portion 
of the Confederate Army in Northern Virginia. 
He selected Manassas Junction as the point at 
which he would receive the attack of the Federal 
forces. On July 18th he fought at Blackburn's 
Ford the battle of Bull Run, in which, with 
about sixteen thousand five hundred men, he re- 
pelled General McDowell's army of about forty- 
five thousand. Procuring the transfer of Gen- 
eral J. E. Johnston's forces, then confronting 
General Patterson at Winchester, and General 
Holmes' troops from Acquia Creek, to form a 
junction with his own, he signally routed the 
Federal army under General McDowell at the 
battle of Manassas, July 21st, 1861. In this, 
the first great battle of the war, General Beaure- ' 
gard's conduct had been most admirable; not 
only had he obtained a glorious victory, but he 
had shown so much caution and moderation, 
and such chivalrous qualities in his intercourse 
with the enemy, that he had won golden opin- 
ions, not only for his military genius, but as a 
high-minded representative of the spirit and 
dignity of the new government. After the bat- 
tle of Manassas he received on the field, from 
President Davis, his promotion as one of the five 
Generals of the Confederate States Army, as 
follows : 

" Manassas, July zist, 1S61. 

"Sir: Appreciating your services in the bat- 
tle of Manassas and on several other occasions 
during the existing .war, as affording the highest 
evidence of your skill as a commander, your 
gallantry as a soldier, and your zeal as a patriot, 
you are promoted to be General in the Army of 
the Confederate States of America, and with the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



consent of the Congress will be duly commis- 
sioned accordingly. 

"Yours, etc. Jeff. Davis." 

Much curiosity having been repeatedly ex- 
pressed as to the reason why the pursuit of the 
Federals immediately after their rout at the 
battle of Manassas was suddenly checked, and 
the Confederate troops recalled towards Ma- 
nassas, in justice to General Beauregard it 
should be stated, that having, after the close of 
the battle, ordered all the troops on the field in 
pursuit, he personally relinquished the command 
of the army to General J. E. Johnston, and 
started at a gallop to take immediate charge of 
the pursuit on the Centreville turnpike. He 
was soon overtaken by a courier, with the in- 
formation that a strong body of Federal troops 
had crossed Bull Run and were advancing on 
Manassas. Taking with him some troops which 
had just arrived too late to take part in the ac- 
tion, he hurried to the spot indicated, only to 
find that it was a false alarm growing out of 
some movements of Confederate troops which 
had been mistaken, through their similarity of 
uniform, for Federals. As it was by this time 
quite dark, and the men were greatly jaded by 
their long march during that hot July day, he 
directed them to halt and bivouac where they 
were, and this will explain why no sustained 
vigorous pursuit of McDowell's army was made 
that evening. Any pursuit of the Federals next 
day toward the Long Bridge over the Potomac 
could have led to no possible military advan- 
tage, protected as that position was by a system 
of field-works, and even had there been no such 
works the bridge, a mile in length, was com- 
manded by Federal ships of war ; and a few- 
pieces of artillery or the destruction of a small 
part of the bridge, could have made its passage 
impracticable. General Beauregard's plan was 
to pass the Potomac above Washington at Ed- 
ward's Ferry, and with the hope of undertaking 
such a movement he had caused a reconnoissance 
of the country to be made in the month of June, 
but the necessary transportation, even for the 
ammunition essential to such a movement, had 



not been provided, nor was there twenty-four 
hours food at Manassas for the troops brought ' 
together for that battle. 

At the end of January, 1862, General Beaure- 
gard left Centreville, Va., under orders attach- 
ing him to the Confederate forces in the West. 
After conferring with General Albert Sidney 
Johnston, then at Bowling Green, Ky., he 
established his head-quarters at Jackson, Tenn., 
on 17th February, and commenced at once to 
form an army at Corinth, Miss. He took com- 
mand of the Army of the Mississippi, March 
5th, 1862, calling upon the Governors of the 
States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and 
Alabama for all the volunteer troops they could 
send him, and while assembling his forces at 
Corinth, fortified the Mississippi at Madrid Bend 
and Island No. 10 against Commodore Foote's 
fleet. Meanwhile he urged General A. S. John- 
ston, who had fallen back from Nashville in the 
direction of Stevenson, Ala., to join him at 
Corinth, in order that they might together fall 
upon and crush the Federal army under General 
Grant, at Pittsburg Landing, before it had been 
fully concentrated for offensive operations. At 
first General Johnston did not seem to see the 
necessity of the proposed concentration, but by 
the middle of March he announced that he had 
concluded to make the junction. On General 
Johnston's arrival at Corinth, he desired to 
transfer the direct command of the united armies 
to General Beauregard, and to confine his own 
functions to those of a Department Commander, 
for the patriotic and unselfish reason that he 
feared he had lost the confidence of the people 
and the troops in consequence of the resent dis- 
asters in Middle Tennessee. General Beaure- 
gard promptly declined the offer, urging Gen- 
eral Johnston to remain at the head of the army, 
and pledging him cordial support as his second 
in command. In the meantime the Federal 
forces at Pittsburg Landing were daily gaining 
strength, and it became apparent that if they 
were to be attacked by the Confederates at all, 
it must be not later than the commencement of 
April. To General Beauregard was left practi- 
cally the organization of the Confederate army 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



123 



for an early offensive movement against the 
enemy. On the night of the 2d of April he 
received information that a strong Federal force, 
believed to be General Wallace's division, was 
menacing Bethel Station, on the Mobile and 
Ohio Railroad, about twenty-four miles north 
of Corinth, and at once gave it as his opinion 
that the moment had arrived to strike the enemy. 
At a personal conference held at General Beau- 
regard's head-quarters, at which were present 
Generals A. S. Johnston, Bragg, Polk and Har- 
dee, the details of the advance and attack upon 
Pittsburg Landing were minutely explained to 
those officers, as it was feared that time would 
not permit of the preparation of the " written " 
orders to the corps commanders. At twelve 
o'clock noon of the 3d of April, the time pre- 
scribed by General Beauregard, the troops were 
all under arms in the streets of Corinth, but it 
was not until dark that they eventually filed out 
of the town, owing to one of the corps command- 
ers who delayed his corps for the " written 
order" to march. The other two corps being 
in the rear of the one referred to, were unable 
to move until he had cleared the way. But for 
this inexcusable delay the Confederate army 
could with ease have reached the immediate 
vicinity of the enemy by the afternoon of the 
4th of April, and made the attack, as General 
Beauregard had planned, on the morning of 
April 5th ; in which case General Buell would 
have reached the field entirely too late to re- 
trieve the disaster which was inflicted on Gen- 
eral Grant on April 6th, and would himself have 
been forced to retire from Middle Tennessee. 
An impolitic reconnoissance in force on the 4th 
April by Colonel Wheeler, acting under General 
Bragg's orders, had forewarned the Federal com- 
mander of the near approach of the Confederate 
army. At a council held in the afternoon of 
April 5th, when within four miles of Pittsburg 
Landing, General Beauregard expressed to Gen- 
eral Johnston his fears that in consequence of 
the delay in quitting Corinth, the tardiness of 
the march and the injudicious notice given to 
the Federals, by that reconnoissance, of the close 
proximity of the Confederate forces, the whole 



plan of operations had been foiled ; as its suc- 
cess had been based entirely upon the expecta- 
tion of effecting a complete surprise. General 
Johnston, while acknowledging the force of 
General Beauregard's objections, did not con- 
sider that he could, under the circumstances, 
withdraw without giving battle, and the attack 
was accordingly made on the morning of the 
6th April precisely in the manner prescribed in 
General Beauregard's general order of the 3d 
April. About half-past two o'clock in the after- 
noon of the 6th, on the death of General A. S. 
Johnston, General Beauregard assumed the chief 
command and gave orders to press on the attack 
in every direction. About sundown, finding 
that his raw undisciplined troops were scattered 
in every direction, not only by the severity of 
the contest but by the broken and wooded 
nature of the country, and ascertaining that the 
attack then going on was too scattered and weak 
to dislodge the enemy from the protection of his 
land batteries and gunboats, he determined to 
take advantage of the few remaining moments 
of daylight to reorganize his troops so as to be 
in readiness to meet the onset of Wallace's fresh 
division on his left flank and Buell's forces in 
his front at daylight. On the 7th April, with 
some fifteen thousand effectives, he withstood 
the Federal forces, reinforced by General Buell's 
army of thirty-five thousand men, from sunrise 
until two p. M., and retreated that evening un- 
molested to Monterey and Corinth, with thirty 
captured cannon, twenty-six stands of colors, 
and over three thousand prisoners. He fortified 
and held Corinth against a greatly superior force 
under General Halleck until May 30th, when he 
evacuated that city, carrying off his vast depot 
of military stores, and made a masterly retreat 
to Tupelo, Miss. On June 22d, by the advice 
of his physicians, he temporarily withdrew his 
head-quarters to Bladon, Ala., leaving the army 
to be reorganized by General Bragg, who, upon 
this pretext, was assigned by the War Depart- 
ment permanently to the command. The ad- 
ministration at Richmond had about this time 
become hostile to both General Beauregard and 
General Joseph E. Johnston without any known 



124 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



cause, and this opportunity was seized upon to 
deprive General Beauregard of his command, 
without passing the order through him or even 
furnishing him with a copy. In September, 
1^62, at the request of Governor Pickens of 
South Carolina, he was ordered to assume com- 
mand of the Department of South Carolina and 
Georgia, and established his head-quarters at 
Charleston, S. C. He found the defences of 
these two States in a defective and incomplete 
condition, with several points unprotected, and 
having inspected the defences of Charleston and 
Savannah, made a requisition on the War De- 
partment for the additional troops and heavy 
guns deemed necessary. Neither could be fur- 
nished, however, owing to the pressing wants of 
the Confederacy at other points. 

Shortly afterwards Florida was added to his 
command, but without any increase of troops or 
guns except the few already in that State ; and 
later on several brigades were withdrawn, not- 
withstanding his protest, to reinforce the armies 
of Virginia and Tennessee. There was to be 
defended from serious penetration a coast-line 
of three hundred and fifty to four hundred miles, 
with several ports and harbors in the possession 
of the enemy whose armed fleets and transports 
swarmed all the waters, while a Federal army, 
generally twenty thousand strong, could at any 
time be thrown upon any vulnerable point from 
Georgetown, S. C, to Jacksonville, Fla. He 
established a series of signal stations at frequent 
intervals along this immense coast-line, from 
North Carolina to Florida, communicating with 
the telegraph lines, and by this means was im- 
mediately advised of the movements of any Fed- 
eral vessels passing. One regiment was con- 
stantly and other two regiments were kept in 
readiness to move at a moment's notice, with 
sixty rounds of ammunition in their cartridge- 
boxes and three days' provision in their haver- 
sacks, with the necessary cars waiting to trans- 
port them to any point that the signal-officers 
might indicate as threatened by a Federal fleet. 
In this manner General Beauregard had due 
notice of the approach of General Seymour's 
expedition against Florida, and was thus enabled 



to send troops to the support of the local forces 
and signally defeat him at the battle of Olustee. 
The successful defence of that large department 
under such circumstances was one of the most 
brilliant achievements in modern warfare. In 
Charleston harbor, from Fort Sumter to Fort 
Moultrie, a rope obstruction was stretched, with 
two lines of torpedoes a few hundred feet in ad- 
vance of it; it consisted of two heavy cables 
about five or six feet apart, the one below the 
other, and connected together by a network of 
smaller ropes. The anchors were made fast to 
the lower cable, and the buoys or floats to the 
upper one, which carried a fringe of smaller 
ropes floating as so many streamers on the sur- 
face and destined to foul the screw propeller of 
any steamer which might attempt to pass over 
the obstruction. The torpedoes floated a few 
feet below the surface of the water at low tide, 
and were arranged to explode by concussion. 

The first torpedoes used in the war were 
placed in the James river, below Richmond, by 
General G. R. Rains, who afterwards became 
Chief of the Torpedo Bureau. To General 
Beauregard, however, belongs the credit of 
having recognized from the first the wonderful 
capabilities of this terrible engine of modern 
warfare, and of giving every encouragement and 
assistance to practical experiments with this 
newly invented arm. The spar torpedo, as an 
attachment to vessels, now in general use in the 
Federal navy, was first used under his direction 
against the blockading fleet off Charleston. The 
" New Ironsides," an iron-clad steamer throw- 
ing a much heavier weight of metal at each 
broadside than all the monitors of the Federal 
fleet together, was the most effective vessel em- 
ployed against the batteries, and repeated efforts 
were made by General Beauregard to blow her 
up with torpedoes. The first attempt failed 
through the accidental fouling of the spar, with 
which the boat was provided, in the anchor- 
chain of the "Ironsides." The next attempt 
made against this much-dreaded naval Goliath 
was by a cigar-shaped boat, the " David," 
speciallv planned and constructed for the pur- 
pose: it was about twenty feet long, with a di- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



J 25 



ameterof five feet at its middle, being propelled 
by a small screw worked by a diminutive engine, 
and was fitted with a spar t'orpedo. She struck 
the mammoth iron-clad with her torpedo about 
six feet under water, but, fortunately for the 
steamer, she received the shock against one of 
her inner bulk-heads, which saved her from de- 
struction. The "New Ironsides" never fired 
another shot after this attack upon her ; she 
■remained some time at her anchorage, off Morris 
Island, undergoing repairs, and ultimately was 
taken to Philadelphia, where she remained until 
destroyed by fire, after the close of the war. 
Another torpedo boat, called from its shape the 
"fish torpedo boat," was propelled by a screw 
worked from the inside by seven or eight men, 
and so contrived that it could be submerged at 
pleasure and worked under water for several 
hours at a time. After several accidents, through 
inexperience in its management, it was used, 
though not as a submarine machine, against the 
Federal steam sloop-of-war " Housatonic," a 
powerful new vessel, carrying eleven guns of the 
largest calibre. The "fish torpedo boat" was 
fitted with a spar torpedo, and struck and sunk 
the "Housatonic," but from some unknown 
cause was sunk itself, and all on board perished. 
After this the Federal officers became very 
watchful, and surrounded their steamer at night 
with nettings and floating booms, to prevent 
the torpedo boats from coming near enough to 
do them any injury. Torpedoes were also 
planted, by General Beauregard's directions, in 
the channels of some of the rivers, and several 
large steamers were destroyed and others de- 
terred from entering the rivers. Seven iron- 
clads, eleven wooden war vessels and six army 
transports were destroyed by Southern torpedoes 
during the war, and more were seriously dam- 
aged. On April 6th, 1863, Admiral Dupont 
made his attack on Fort Sumter and the works 
on Sullivan's Island, with seven monitors, the 
"New Ironsides," and several gunboats and 
mortar boats, supported by General Hunter's 
army. This naval attack was more formidable 
from the character of the vessels engaged, and 
the magnitude of the calibre of the armaments, 



than any other fortifications had ever been sub- 
jected to, but in less than forty minutes five of 
the nine iron-armored vessels were placed hois 
de combat, and the Federals were completely 
repulsed. One of the monitors, the "Keokuk," 
sank at her anchors that night, and Admiral 
Dupont, "feeling convinced of the utter im- 
practicability of taking the city of Charles- 
ton with the force under his command," re- 
turned with all of his fleet, except the "New 
Ironsides," to Port Royal. One of the princi- 
pal causes of the Confederate success on that 
occasion, exclusive of the gallantry and disci- 
pline of the troops, was attributable to the fact 
that General Beauregard, on his arrival at 
Charleston, in September, 1862, had as many 
of the guns as he could rifled and banded, and 
attached to them an ingenious traversing ar- 
rangement to keep guns aimed at movable 
objects, and fire them as accurately as though 
those objects were stationary. However slow 
or fast the Federal vessels moved in their evolu- 
tions, they received a steady and unerring fire, 
which at first disconcerted them, and at last 
gave General Beauregard a brilliant victory. 
The General was of opinion that, had this naval 
attack on Fort Sumter been made at night, 
while the fleet could have easily approached 
near enough to see the fort — a large, lofty 
object, covering several acres — the monitors, 
which were relatively so small and low in the 
water, could not have been seen from the fort, 
and it would have been impossible, therefore, 
for the latter to have returned with any accu- 
racy the fire of the fleet; this plan of attack 
could have been repeated every night, until the 
walls of the fort should have crumbled under the 
enormous missiles which made holes two and a 
half feet deep in the walls. The damages of the 
night could not have been repaired during the 
day, and Fort Sumter thus attacked must have 
been disabled and silenced in a few days. Such 
a result at that time would have been necessarily 
followed by the evacuation of Morris and Sulli- 
van's islands, and soon after of Charleston itself, 
for General Beauregard had not yet had time to 
complete and arm the system of works, includ- 



126 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ing James Island and the inner harbor, which 
enabled him six months later to bid defiance to 
Admiral Dahlgren's powerful fleet and General 
Gillmore's strong land forces. Another cause 
of their success was that a short time before the 
battle General Beauregard had ordered that one- 
third of the available ammunition should be ex- 
pended in practising at movable targets, made 
somewhat in the shape of a monitor and allowed 
to float out of the harbor with the strongest ebb- 
tides. The result was that the officers and men 
knew exactly what to do and how to do it. 

In July, 1S63, a combined land and sea attack 
on Fort Sumter and the batteries was made by 
General Gillmore and Admiral Dahlgren. On 
the 1 6th of July the completeness of General 
Beauregard's works on James Island enabled a 
small force to signally defeat a strong column 
under General Terry. On the iSth of July 
and for fifty days afterwards Battery Wagner 
successfully withstood a combined naval and 
land attack of a magnitude that no other single 
work, of any size or armament, ever had brought 
to bear upon it. On the 18th of July it bore 
the brunt successfully for eight hours, without 
an instant's cessation, of the fire of the "New 
Ironsides" and five or six monitors, with their 
n-inchand 15-inch guns, and five unarmored 
vessels, together with several land batteries, and 
remained in condition to inflict one of the 
bloodiest defeats known in history upon the 
powerful column General Gillmore sent to storm 
it. Subjected to an incessant daily bombard- 
ment from Dahlgren's fleet and Gillmore's 
breaching batteries and mortars, for fifty days, 
until the Federal troops had dug their way up 
to the glacis and planted their flag on the very 
verge of the counter scarps of the work, such 
was the admirable system that the defence was 
crowned by an evacuation of Battery Wagner 
and of Morris Island which has no parallel in 
ancient or modern warfare for its skill. Gen- 
eral Beauregard's principal object in holding 
Morris Island so long and tenaciously was to 
enable him to complete and arm his interior 
line of defences, which could not be finished 
sooner for the want of labor and guns. These 



were completed about the 1st of September, and 
Batteries Wagner and Gregg being no longer 
tenable he evacuated Morris Island, a very diffi- 
cult and dangerous movement, with secrecy and 
success. 

Fort Sumter was intended for three tiers of 
guns, two in casemates and the upper one in 
"barbette;" in 1863 it had guns only in the 
lower tier of casemates and in the tier of bar- 
bettes. When the attack from Morris Island 
was about to commence, the guns of the lower 
tier of casemates, facing or exposed to a fire 
from that island, were removed to new batteries 
in the harbor, and those casemates were, by 
General Beauregard's orders, solidly packed 
with wet cotton bales, wet sand-bags and wet 
sand, so as to form a solid mass of about twenty- 
five feet in thickness to resist the shots of the 
enemy. Sand-bags were also piled up against 
the face of the scarp-wall, as the upper tier of 
casemates and the barbette walls were demol- 
ished by the enemy's shots and shells, their 
debris adding still more to the thickness of the 
lower tier of casemates. The general debris of 
the fort was used in constructing traverses and 
covered ways inside of the fort for the protec- 
tion of the garrison. A few months after the 
firing had commenced, all the guns of the fort 
had been dismounted, and some more or less 
severely injured, except one 24-pounder, which 
was used during the whole siege in firing the 
morning and evening guns. About a year after 
the commencement of the siege, six of the 
heaviest guns were remounted in the lower tier 
of casemates, facing the entrance to the harbor; 
the other guns, which had not been injured, had 
been removed, as soon as dismounted by the 
enemy's fire, to the new batteries constructed to 
defend the harbor in place of Fort Sumter. The 
fort had by this time become an entirely inert 
defensive work, but General Beauregard was 
compelled to hold it in order to retain posses- 
sion of Charleston harbor. The Federal bom- 
bardment was kept up for about eighteen 
months, but for the last six months only occa- 
sional shots were fired, as it was found impossible 
to dislodge the garrison. The walls were bat- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



127 



tered down to the lower line of casemates, the 
tops of which were protected by means of trav- 
erses and heavy embankments, that had been con- 
structed from the debris and by excavating the 
parade ground. The front, facing Morris Island, 
was protected by wet cotton bales, sand-bags, 
etc., as before described. General Beauregard's 
plan was to repair during the night the damages 
inflicted by the bombardment, in the daytime, 
for which purpose 150 laborers, mostly negroes, 
were employed in addition to the garrison. 

Immediately after the evacuation of Morris 
Island, Admiral Dahlgren demanded the sur- 
render of Fort Sumter, saying he wished to 
avoid further effusion of blood, and that the 
position was no longer tenable by the Confed- 
erate forces. To this demand General Beaure- 
gard replied that if Admiral Dahlgren wished to 
gain possession of those ruins, he would have to 
take them by force. Anticipating that Dahlgren 
would make a night attack, Beauregard made all 
the necessary preparations for the defence of 
the position ; ordering the batteries around the 
harbor to be manned every night with guns 
loaded, and aimed at and around the ruins; be- 
sides having guard-boats in advance of the fort 
constantly on the watch, with signal-rockets to 
be fired when the enemy appeared. At these 
signals all the batteries around the harbor were 
to open simultaneously and continuously, until 
stopped by other signals from the fort. A night 
or two after the evacuation of Morris Island, at 
about one o'clock a. m., signal-rockets were fired 
by the guard-boats, and all the batteries immedi- 
ately opened fire, according to orders, just as the 
Federal boats had reached the foot of the debris 
at the fort. The whole affair lasted little more 
than a quarter of an hour, in which time many 
of the boats were destroyed and the rest driven 
away, leaving about one hundred and thirty-five 
officers and men prisoners to the garrison, 
which had opened fire on the attacking party 
with musketry and hand-grenades. It was one 
of the most signal and brilliant repulses of the 
war. Fort Sumter was never surrendered ; but 
when, in March, 1865, General Beauregard 
concentrated all the scattered forces of the 



department at and about Columbia, S. C.,and 
it became necessary to evacuate Charleston, 
the garrison was withdrawn from the dismantled 
ruins, which had been held for four years con- 
tinuously, in the face of the longest and most 
terrible bombardment known in history. 

In May, 1864, General Beauregard was trans- 
ferred to the Department of North Carolina and 
Southern Virginia. Arriving at Drury's Bluff on 
the 14th May, he found the place defended by 
about 10,000 Confederate troops and invested 
by General Butler with from 25,000 to 30,000 
men. He at once despatched an officer to the 
President, suggesting that he should be rein- 
forced immediately by a part of the garrison of 
Richmond, and about 10,000 men from Gen- 
eral Lee's army, to enable him to take the 
offensive at daybreak next morning, promising 
to capture or destroy the whole of Butler's army, 
when he would be able to move at once to the 
assistance of General Lee by crossing the James 
river and the Chickahominy to attack General 
Grant on his left flank and rear, whilst General 
Lee would attack him in front. He felt con- 
fident that Grant's forces would be so crippled 
by this sudden onset at the very time when 
they would first hear of Butler's defeat that they 
would be paralyzed for the rest of the season, 
and the road to Washington might thereby be 
opened to the Confederates for an offensive 
movement ; moreover, that city was then de- 
fended only by a small garrison, nearly all the 
trooDS having been withdrawn therefrom some 
time previously to reinforce General Grant. 
The probabilities of success appear greater in 
the light of later events, as we find that Gen- 
eral Grant reported at that period that he was 
compelled to remain inactive several days to 
await further reinforcements. President Davis, 
however, fearing to withdraw any troops from 
General Lee, felt compelled to reject this plan 
which might have enabled the Confederates to 
dictate peace in the capital of the United States. 
The following letter to General Braxton Bragg, 
then holding the position of General Command- 
ing the Confederate States Armies, gives the 
plan in extenso : 



128 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



" Head-quarters Dep't of N. C. and South Va. 
"Drury's Bluff, May nt/i, 1S64. 
"General Braxton Bragg, General Com- 
manding C. S. Armies, Richmond, Va. : 
" Considering the vital importance of the 
issue involved and resting upon the plan I 
suggested to you this morning, I have deemed 
it desirable and appropriate that its substance 
should be briefly communicated in writing, as 
follows: General Lee's army at Guinea's Sta- 
tion and my command at this place are on 
nearly a right line passing through Richmond, 
Grant's army being on the left flank and Butler's 
on the right ; our lines are thus interior. But- 
ler's aim is unquestionably to invest and turn 
Drury's Bluff, threaten and hold the Petersburg 
and Danville railroads, open the obstructions in 
the river at Fort Drury for the passage of war 
vessels, necessitating, then, the retreat of General 
Lee to the lines about Richmond. With the 
railroads held by the enemy, Grant in front and 
Butler in rear of the works around Richmond, 
the capital would be practically invested, and 
the issue might well be dreaded. The plan 
suggested is, that General Lee should fall back 
to the defensive lines of the Chickahominy, even 
to the intermediate lines of Richmond, send- 
ing temporarily to this place 15,000 men of his 
troops, including about 5,000 men at Rich- 
mond; immediately upon that accession to my 
present force, I would take the offensive and 
attack Butler vigorously. Such a move, properly 
made, would throw me directly upon Butler's 
communications, and, as he now stands, on his 
right flank, well towards the rear: General 
Whiting should also move simultaneously. But- 
ler must be then necessarily crushed or captured, 
and all the stores of that army at Bermuda Hun- 
dreds would fall into our hands; an amount, 
probably, that would make an interruption in our 
communications for a period of a few days a 
matter of no serious inconvenience. The pro- 
posed attack should be accomplished in two days 
at furthest after receivingmyreinforcements; this 
done, I would move with 10,000 more men 
to the assistance of General Lee than I received 
from him, and Grant's fate would not long 



remain doubtful. The destruction of Grant's 
forces would open the way for the recovery of 
most of our lost territory, as already submitted to 
you in general terms. Respectfully, etc., 

" G. T. Beauregard, 
" General." 

On the i6lh of May he defeated Butler's 
army, inflicting on him a loss of over 3,000 men, 
completely covering the southern communica- 
tions of Richmond, and thus securing one of the 
principal objects of the attack. 

After the battle of Cold Harbor, forecasting 
Grant's future movement to the south of the 
James river, he forewarned the Confederate 
Government of it (June 7th and 9th), but un- 
availingly, and hence, on June 15th, 16th, and 
17th, with a force of but 5,700 men, gradually 
increased to not more than 10,500, he withstood, 
in front of Petersburg, the onslaught of four of 
the successively arriving Federal army corps, of 
about 20,000 men each, till he was reinforced on 
June 1 8th by Kershaw's division of Lee's army, 
5,000 strong, when Grant was finally repulsed and 
his operations virtually reduced to a siege. The 
new trench-lines taken by General Beauregard 
during this three days' battle were held by the 
Confederates to the end of the war. This achieve- 
ment, unique in the history of the war, gave to 
the Confederacy a ten months' extension of life. 

Previous to the explosion of the "Crater" 
in the lines of Petersburg, July 30th, 1S64, 
General Beauregard had made ample prepara- 
tions to meet this event. It was not known 
exactly at what point the mine would be 
exploded, but it was readily supposed that it 
would be on the front guarded by his troops, 
and as there were but three salients on the line 
offering any advantages for mining purposes, he 
had commenced counter-mining at two of the 
principal ones to defeat the object of the enemy. 
General Beauregard had moreover erected bat- 
teries of twelve-pounder Napoleons and eight- 
inch and ten-inch mortars on elevations, in rear 
of his front, to command the approaches to 
those points, and had given all necessary orders 
to prevent a panic, confusion or delay, in the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



129 



event of a mine being exploded under any one 
of the salients referred to. He had also con- 
structed gorge-lines in rear of them for the 
troops to retire into if necessary. A little before 
5 o'clock a. M. on July 30th, 1864, the explo- 
sion occurred : after a severe and gallant struggle 
of several hours, the Federals, who had held 
temporary possession of the "Crater" salient 
and a small part of the lines, were successfully 
driven out of the works with a loss in killed, 
wounded and prisoners of about 6,000 men, 
while the Confederate loss was about 2,000. In 
October, 1864, General Beauregard was assigned 
to the Military Division of the West, comprising 
the departments of Lieutenant-Generals Hood 
and Taylor. The chief forces, some 36,000 
strong, under General Hood, were then being 
detached on an eccentric movement against 
Nashville, while those under General Taylor 
were retained to confront the Federal forces 
operating from New Orleans and Mobile. To 
oppose General Sherman's 65,000 veterans, 
moving from Atlanta across Georgia to the 
Atlantic coast, during the fall of 1864, General 
Beauregard had only some 5,000 cavalry and a 
few thousand infantry, the latter being mostly 
militia. While Sherman was operating round 
Savannah, he, hastening from Northern Ala- 
bama, skilfully withdrew, December 20th, Gen- 
eral Hardee's 10,000 men to the vicinity of 
Pocotaligo, S. C, and in the rear of the Salka- 
hatchie. 

While endeavoring, during the last months of 
the Confederacy, to collect, at Augusta, Ga., 
the debris of Hood's Tennessee army, and other 
scattered commands, he urged, though unavail- 
ingly, on the Confederate War Department, the 
concentration of all available forces for a final 
decisive offensive movement from interior lines 
against Sherman and then Grant. In April, 1S65, 
he was voluntarily assisting General J. E. John- 
ston in North Carolina, when the war ended and 
he surrendered with that officer at Greensboro, 
N. C. In closing this brief account of General 
Beauregard's military career, we cannot forbear 
quoting the following just tribute to one of his 
most characteristic qualities which appeared in 
9 



a Southern journal : "In one quality of a great 
General, he was without a compeer. We mean 
in the indescribable magnetic influence which 
a few men appear to have wielded over large 
masses. Wellington did not possess it, nor 
Marlborough, nor indeed, we believe, did Gen- 
eral Lee. Their troops had great, indeed un- 
bounded, confidence in them; but it seems to 
have been the confidence which grew out of 
trial, and ripened through success. But Beau- 
regard was beloved of every army he com- 
manded from the day he assumed the baton, and 
we are confident that, on the last day of its or- 
ganization, the grand Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia would have greeted his presence among 
them with shouts of joy and demonstrations of 
wild affection which no other living man could 
elicit. Napoleon possessed this quality in a 
striking degree — Stonewall Jackson possessed it 
to a great extent. Amongst the Federal Gen- 
erals, we think General Sherman exhibited more 
evidence of it than any other, unless, perhaps, 
General McClellan. But, for Beauregard,, 
whether he commanded on the banks of the 
Tennessee, on the dreary sand-hills of Corinth, 
in the much-bombarded 'City of the Sea,' or 
in the well-defended lines which looked on 
classic Potomac, his troops ever showed the 
greatest enthusiasm, the most ardent affection." 
General Beauregard, in the early part of the 
struggle, advocated the formation of one or two 
companies of colored troops to each regiment 
for pioneer and police service, including that of 
cooks, teamsters, and laborers, in the erection 
of fortifications under a military organization 
and regimental relation, so as to become, sub- 
sequently, if found expedient in the course of 
the war, the nucleus of colored regiments and 
brigades. In the summer of 1864, while at 
Petersburg, he agreed with General Lee that 
the colored troops should be called out and 
regimented, to guard the less-exposed forts, ar- 
senals, etc., so as to allow the well-disciplined 
white garrison to be sent to the field. The 
Confederate Congress finally passed a law arm- 
ing the colored people of proper age, granting 
them their freedom, etc., but, before it could 



i 3 o 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



be carried into effect, the Confederacy came to 
an end. During the destruction of Fort Sum- 
ter in 1863-64, General Beauregard employed 
some one hundred and fifty colored laborers in 
the fort to assist in building up the parapets, 
etc., with the debris of the walls and casemates. 
These laborers generally remained a week at a 
time exposed, like the white troops, to one of 
the severest and longest bombardments recorded 
in history, and, as a rule, behaved well under 
fire. It may be here incidentally mentioned 
that General Beauregard is now engaged in the 
preparation for the press of a narrative of the 
military operations in which he took part from 
April, 1861,, to May, 1S65. The war being 
over, he returned to New Orleans, where he has 
resided ever since. In 1866, when war was 
imminent between Turkey and the Danubian 
principalities, the chief command of the Rou- 
manian army was offered to General Beauregard ; 
and, in 1869, he was offered the chief command 
of the army of the Khedive of Egypt ; both of 
.these offers, however, he declined. 

He was offered by the government, in 1S79, 
an appointment on the Mississippi River Com- 
mission, but declined because his other engage- 
ments prevented him from devoting all his time 
and attention to the important duties of that 
commission, on whose decision will depend, in 
a great measure, the future commercial pros- 
perity of the whole Mississippi valley. In a let- 
ter to General Randall R. Gibson, dated Feb- 
ruary 7th, 1878, in which he exposes the fallacies 
of the Levee Commission and others, he points 
out, "that this great navigable highway of half 
the continent might be so improved as to secure 
a ship-channel from the mouth to Cairo or per- 
haps St. Louis;" General Beauregard also sug- 
gests, "that Congress should appropriate the 
sum of $300,000 for a thorough hydrographic 
survey of the Mississippi river and its principal 
tributaries with a view to increasing the naviga- 
ble depth, obviating the existing dangers due to 
sand-bars, snags, etc., and to lowering its flood- 
line, thereby making a levee system more prac- 
ticable and less expensive. Also another sum, 
say $3,000,000, to allow Captain Eads, under 



the supervision of a commission of three or five 
engineers, to apply his plan of improvement in 

a section of the river of miles, above or 

below Memphis, where the bars may be worst. 
That experiment, which is worthy of the stated 
sum, would not only test the system, but furnish 
data to make a correct and reliable estimate of 
the cost for the protection of the alluvial basin 
from New Orleans to Cairo, after the hydro- 
graphic survey above referred to shall have been 
completed." This letter was referred to by 
General Gibson in his speech before the House 
of Representatives in Congress, February 5th, 
1879, "On the Improvement of the Mississippi 
River." 

General Beauregard has been President of two 
important railroads, the New Orleans, Jackson, 
and Great Northern Railroad, and the New 
Orleans and Carrollton Railroad. He is now 
Adjutant-General of the State National Guard 
of Louisiana ; President of the Co-operative 
Claim Association of America, St. Louis; and 
one of the Liquidators of the Southern National 
Bank of New Orleans. 

General Beauregard has been twice married. 
In 1 841 he married Miss Laure Villere, of New 
Orleans, granddaughter of Governor James Vil- 
lere, the second American Governor of Louisi- 
ana. This lady died in 1850. In i860 he 
married Miss Caroline Desloude, daughter of a 
large sugar-planter in St. James' parish, La., 
and grandniece of Mr. Poydras, a wealthy and 
benevolent citizen of New Orleans, who left his 
large fortune for the benefit of the poor : he was 
a State Senator for many years, and owned sev- 
eral sugar plantations ; the Poydras Asylum for 
Orphans was endowed by him, and Poydras 
Street in New Orleans was named in his honor. 
General Beauregard's second wife was a sister- 
in-law of the Hon. John Slidell, United States 
Senator from Louisiana before the war, and 
afterwards Confederate States Minister to France. 
The General had been married to his second 
wife only about nine months when he was sum- 
moned to Montgomery, Ala., by the Confeder- 
ate Government. He anticipated returning at 
once to New Orleans., but was ordered to 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Charleston, and from thence to Virginia, etc., 
and had no opportunity of returning to his 
native State until after the war had terminated. 
His wife died in New Orleans in 1864, one year 
before the end of the war, without having again 
seen the General, who had remained at his post 
in the field, although anxious to bid adieu to 
his beloved wife whom he had not seen since 
his departure from New Orleans more than 
three years previously. 

He has two sons and one daughter, the chil- 
dren of his first wife; his eldest son, Major Rene 
Toutant Beauregard, was, during the war, an 
officer of artillery, and commanded a battalion 
of light artillery in the Army of the Tennessee; 
his second son, Lieutenant Henry Toutant Beau- 
regard, was attached to the First Regiment 
of South Carolina Infantry, and stationed in 
Charleston harbor. By his second wife he had 
no children. Attached to General Beauregard's 
personal staff during the war were his brother, 
Major A. N. T. Beauregard, and a nephew, 
Major Alcee T. Beauregard. On his general 
staff, Major Edmund Desloude and Captain S. 
R. Proctor, both brothers-in-law of the General, 
were Assistant Quartermasters ; and Richard T. 
Beauregard and Arthur" Legendre, both nephews 
of the General, were engaged in the office. 
Another of his brothers-in-law, Hon. Charles J. 
Villere, a grandson of Governor Villere, of 
Louisiana, was a member of the Confederate 
Congress from the First District of Louisiana. 
Numerous other relatives of General Beauregard 
served in the Confederate army in different 
positions. 

HON. A. P. ALDRICH. 

South Carolina. 

LFRED PROCTOR ALDRICH was 
born in Charleston, S. C, June 4th, 
1814, and is the son of Robert Aldrich, 
merchant, who was born in Mendon, 
Mass., and came to Charleston, S. C, 
when eighteen years of age, where he continued 
in business until his death, at the age of seventy- 
two years. The Aldrich family are of English 




descent. Some members of the family came 
over to New England in the expedition follow- 
ing that of the "Mayflower," and settled in 
Mendon, Mass., about 1621. The family resi- 
dence, an old stone house, is still in the posses- 
sion of a member of the family. Dr. Whipple 
Aldrich, of St. Mary's, Georgia, and a planter 
on St. John's river, was a brother of Robert Al- ; 
drich, as was also Essick Aldrich, merchant, of 
Providence, R. I., while Mrs. Waterman, of 
Providence, R. I., is a sister. T. Bailey Aldrich, 
the poet, author of several sweet poems and prose 
works, is a cousin of the subject of this sketch. 

Alfred P. Aldrich received his early education 
in Charleston, his 'first preceptor being Dr. 
Mackey, the father of Dr. Albert G. Mackey, 
the distinguished Freemason, and Grand Secre- 
tary of the Order for the United States, in Wash- 
ington. From that school he went to the 
Charleston College, of which the Rev. Jasper 
Adams was then President, and was there under 
the immediate charge of Miles Melichamp. 
While at the college he had for contemporaries 
General James Simons, Hon. W. D. Porter, Nel- 
son Mitchell, James Walker, Mitchell King, 
Henry D. Lesesne, and others. From the col- 
lege he went to the South Carolina School, es- 
tablished under the patronage of the South Caro- 
lina Society, and then under the direction of Mr. 
Monk. 

He commenced the study of law when between 
eighteen and nineteen years of age under Benja- 
min F. Dunkin, then a leading practitioner, and 
afterwards Chief Justice of South Carolina, and 
in May, 1835, passed his examination, was ad- 
mitted to its Bar, but could not receive his com- 
mission to practise until the following month, 
June, when he became of age. The Court con- 
sisted of Judge David Johnson, President; Judge 
(afterwards Chief Justice) O'Neill, and Judge 
Harper, afterwards Chancellor. He first settled 
in Aiken, S. C, and commenced the practice of 
his profession in partnership with Edmund Bel- 
linger, Jr. In 1836 he went to Florida, as a vol- 
unteer in the Barnwell Company, Captain J. D. 
Allen, but did not serve with the company. 
Colonel C. H. Brisbane, who commanded the 



132 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



First Regiment of South Carolina in the Semi- 
nole war, took a fancy to the young soldier, and 
attached him to his regimental staff, where he 
was associated with the Hon. A. G. Magrath, 
who was Judge of the United States Court for 
the Di'striet of South Carolina at the opening of 
the war between the States, presided as Judge 
of the Confederate Court during the war, and is 
now one of the most distinguished lawyers in the 
State ; Judge George S. Bryan, the present 
Judge of the United States Court for the District 
of South Carolina, Governor M. L. Bonham, 
Langdon Cheves, Frank Hunter, and many 
others, all of whom have enjoyed the highest 
professional and political distinctions, and have 
been his life-long friends. He was in the bat- 
tles at Bulow's plantation, St. John's river, and 
Withlacoochie, and returned to the practice of 
his profession at the close of the campaign. In 
1837 he was appointed by Governor Pierce M. 
Butler, Commissioner in Equity of Barnwell Dis- 
trict, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death 
of General Trotty. He was afterwards elected by 
the Legislature, and filled the office for three con- 
secutive terms of four years each, practising his 
profession at the same time in Barnwell, Beaufort, 
Edgefield, Orangeburg, Kershaw, and in the Ap- 
peal Court in Columbia. In 1856 he was 
elected to the Legislature from Barnwell, and 
General James Simons, then Speaker of the 
House, appointed him Chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Incorporations, and subsequently on his 
re-election Chairman of the Committee on 
Federal Relations. He succeeded General 
Simons as Speaker of the House of Representa- 
tive.; in i860, and retained that office until De- 
cember, 1865, when he was elected to the Bench 
under the old Constitution. On the outbreak 
of hostilities in 1S61, he joined the first brigade 
that went to Virginia under General Bonham, 
and served as his Adjutant-General until after 
the first battle of Manassas. They were sta- 
tioned first at Manassas, then at Centreville and 
at Fairfax, from which they retired on the 16th 
July, and fought the battle of Manassas on the 
18th and 21st of that month. He then returned 
to South Carolina to attend the sittings of the 



Legislature, and subsequently joined General 
Maxey Gregg, and was stationed at Coosahatchie, 
on the coast of South Carolina. Starting with 
his command for Virginia, where they took part 
in the battle of Fredericksburg, he was, when 
about fifteen miles below Columbia, thrown 
from the cars, and having his shoulder broken, 
was incapacitated from further duty and crippled 
for life. General Bonham was elected Governor 
of South Carolina in December, 1S62, and ap- 
pointed Judge Aldrich his Chief of Staff while 
still retaining the office of Speaker of the House. 
When General W. T. Sherman's army entered 
Columbia, Judge Aldrich's three daughters were 
inmates of the Convent, where large numbers of 
the ladies of South Carolina had sought refuge. 
In spite of the General's word pledged to Dr. 
Goodwin, as Mayor, on his surrendering the 
city, that no outrage by the Federal troops 
would be permitted, the city was, by a rocket 
signal from the capitol, fired in every direction, 
and a scene of wanton destruction and pillage 
ensued that would have disgraced Mexican ban- 
ditti. Among other buildings the Convent was 
fired, and the nuns and their charges compelled 
to pass through the streets filled with the drunken 
soldiery, to seek shelter where they might. 
Miss Sallie Aldrich and her two sisters, Mamie 
and Rebecca, with that courage and heroism 
that was the distinguishing characteristic of the 
Southern ladies, after the destruction of Colum- 
bia, joined the family party of Dr. Pope, a 
Beaufort refugee, and walked almost the entire 
distance from Columbia to Barnwell, a distance of 
sixty-four miles, in a little more than two days. 
Having been elected Judge of the Circuit 
Court and Court of Errors in December, 1S65, 
he held his first court at Charleston, in January, 
1866, and among the cases was that of a white 
man who was convicted of larceny, a very unu- 
sual offence among the white population, and 
sentenced, as the law then demanded, to receive 
the lash. General Sickles was at that time in 
command of the military department of North 
and South Carolina, and General Bennett in 
command of the military district of Charleston. 
The morning after the sentence appeared in the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ioZ 



newspapers General Bennett sent to the court- 
house a soldier with musket and bayonet fixed 
to request Judge Aldrich to report at his quar- 
ters. The Judge was not at the court-house, 
and the soldier was referred, by the sheriff, to 
his private residence. Not finding him there, 
he called again on the following morning, and 
delivered a verbal message to the effect that 
General Bennett wanted to see him at his head- 
quarters, to which the Judge replied by a note 
that as he was unaware of any business that he 
had with General Bennett, he declined to go to 
his quarters, and if the General had any business 
with him he would be happy to see him at his 
lodgings. The next morning the General sent 
his adjutant, with a note, in which he stated 
that he was much engaged in preparations to 
leave for Savannah, and requesting the Judge to 
give him an interview at his quarters. To an in- 
quiry as to what hour would be convenient to the 
General, the adjutant replied that he was di- 
rected to await the Judge's convenience, which 
drew forth from him the question, "Am I to 
consider myself under arrest?" An evasive an- 
swer was returned, and the Judge being desirous 
of fathoming the matter, walked with the adju- 
tant in full uniform, amid the wondering glances 
and muttered comments of the passers-by, up 
Meeting street to General Bennett's quarters, 
then at the Mitchell King Mansion, at the cor- 
ner of Meeting and George streets. General 
Bennett was seated at a desk in his office with his 
cap on, which he did not remove on the Judge's 
entrance, and after a few minutes silence, during 
which he kept him standing, gruffly told him to 
take a seat. Handing him a copy of the news- 
paper in which a report of the trial appeared, he 
asked the Judge if he was correctly reported as 
passing the sentence of the lash, and on his re- 
plying in the affirmative, informed him that Gen- 
eral Sickles wanted him to reconsider the sen- 
tence. The Judge replied that that was out of 
the question. He had passed the sentence he 
was compelled to do by the law of the State, and 
that further his court was closed, and any action 
in the case, as far as he was concerned, impossi- 
ble. Finding that his suggestion of an appeal to 



the Chief Justice was impracticable, General 
Bennett asked anxiously what could be done to 
stay execution of the sentence. To this Judge 
Aldrich replied that he had three courses open to 
him, viz. : either to turn the prisoner out of the 
jail, to prevent the sheriff from going to exe- 
cute the sentence, or to apply to Governor Orr 
for a pardon. The General seeming unwilling 
to adopt either course, the Judge left with the 
assurance that there was no restraint on his mo- 
tions, and on his way to his hotel called at the 
office of Sheriff Carew, whom he directed to 
serve a notice on the United States officer in 
command of the jail demanding the prisoner for 
execution of sentence. The officer sent this no- 
tice to General Bennett's quarters, and the 
sheriff received a notice that he would not be al- 
lowed to enter the jail for such a purpose, and 
the prisoner was discharged. 

Judge Aldrich prepared an official report, as 
Judge of the court, of the case, which he for- 
warded to Governor Orr, recommending him to 
lay the whole matter before the President, and 
ask whether this unwarrantable interference of 
the military with the judicial function was per- 
mitted, as if so it would be a mere farce to con- 
tinue to hold courts, and he should suspend his 
judicial functions. Governor Orr, without re- 
porting the matter to the President, thought his 
personal influence with General Sickles would be 
sufficient to put a stop to such high-handed pro- 
ceedings. The Governor's remonstrances, how- 
ever, had little effect on General Sickles, who 
shortly afterwards interfered with a decision of 
the Supreme Court, which was then composed 
of Chief Justice Dunkin and Judges Wardlaw 
and Ingles, and seeing that the whole matter was a 
mere farce and a stigma on justice, Judge Aldrich 
refused to hold any more courts in his circuit. 

It may be mentioned here that a similar in- 
terference, on the part of the military, with the 
decisions of the Bench took place in North 
Carolina, and being reported, through Governor 
Worth, to President Johnson, he promptly issued 
an order suspending all military interference 
with the Judiciary, and Judge Aldrich resumed 
his official duties. He seemed, however, fated 



134 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



to fall under the notice of the military authori- 
ties then exercising control in the State, for at 
his next court, in Darlington, the officer in 
command there sent a soldier in full uniform 
into court to ask for a report of a case against a 
negro, who had been tried and convicted the 
day before. The soldier marched up to .the 
Judge's seat in full uniform, with his shining 
gun and fixed bayonet, and deposited an official 
envelope on the desk. The Judge, without 
touching the envelope or otherwise noticing it, 
said: "Mr. Sheriff, take this man out; it is un- 
seemly for an armed soldier to invade a court 
of justice." The man was conducted out, and 
it is due to the officer in command to say, that 
he immediately sent a polite note, saying, that 
the intrusion of his orderly was due to the awk- 
wardness of the sheriff, who should have received 
his missive at the door. When General Canby 
succeeded General Sickles, the present Chief- 
Justice Willard was his Judge Advocate-General, 
and an order was issued directing the judges to 
draw the jurors from the qualified voters. By 
the Reconstruction acts, then lately passed, all 
persons over twenty-one years of age, whether 
white or black, would therefore be qualified; but 
the law required the judges to compose the juries 
of " free white men over twenty-one years of 
age," and that law they were sworn to carry 
out. The judges met to discuss the situation, 
and informed General Canby of the nature of the 
law which, by their oath of office, they were 
bound to administer, and asked him to modify 
his order. No notice, however, was taken of 
their respectful request, and when Judge Aldrich 
opened his court in Edgefield he brought to the 
notice of the grand jury, in his charge, this 
order and his oath to administer the law, and 
concluded the charge by asserting "that he 
could not and would not obey it." Thereupon 
he received a communication from Major 
Walker, then in command of that military dis- 
trict, asking if he had been correctly reported, 
to which he replied in the affirmative. The 
next court to be held was at Barnwell, his home, 
some twenty days afterwards; and just previous 
to going into court, with his robe under his arm, 



he was met by the adjutant, who told him he 
had a most unpleasant duty to perform, and 
presented him with an order from Major Walker 
suspending him from his official duties. Though 
the adjutant attempted to dissuade him, he told 
him he was determined to go to the court-house 
to explain to the people why he was prevented 
from performing his duties, and accompanied 
by the sheriff he proceeded through the immense 
crowd collected, who displayed great feeling and 
sympathy, to the court-house. The clerk was 
directed to call the grand and petty juries, but 
not to swear them, and the Judge took his seat 
amidst the profoundest silence in the concourse 
of people who could not find standing room. In 
his charge to the jury Judge Aldrich brought to 
their notice the action of the General command- 
ing, who had ordered him to draw the juries 
contrary to the laws of the land, and concluded 
by saying: "I now lay down my office; General 
Canby did not give it to me, nor can he deprive 
me of it. It almost breaks my heart to see my 
proud old native State thus humiliated in my 
person, but the time will come when I will yet 
preside in this court, a South Carolina's judge 
whose ermine is unstained." General Canby 
appointed Zephaniah Piatt, the father-in-law of 
Mr. Willard, his Judge Advocate-General, who 
had lately removed from Michigan to Aiken, 
S. C, in Judge Aldrich's place. 

Being still a Judge, he could not practise his 
profession in South Carolina, and therefore re- 
moved to Augusta, Ga., where he opened a law 
office, and the people receiving him with gen- 
erous hospitality he soon entered upon a suc- 
cessful practice and was retained in many im- 
portant cases. After two years' residence in 
Augusta, in which he made hosts of friends, he 
returned to Barnwell and resumed practice with 
his son, Robert Aldrich, now a member of the 
Legislature of South Carolina. He took no 
active part in politics until the memorable cam- 
paign of 1S76, when he accompanied General 
Wade Hampton through his Congressional dis- 
trict, and wound up the campaign with him in 
Columbia. When the Hampton Government 
was firmly established, the Legislature and Su- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



!3S 



preme Court decided that the previous election 
for Circuit Judges was unconstitutional, and the 
offices vacant. A new election was held in 
February, 1878, and Judge Aldrich elected by 
acclamation Judge of the Second Circuit. He 
is the only Judge of the old regime now on the 
bench, and from one end of his State to the 
other has been received with a warmth and en- 
thusiasm that seems a connecting link between 
the past and the present, and is good evidence 
that the citizens of the proud old Palmetto State 
have not forgotten those who have fought and 
suffered in their defence. On the establishment 
by the Legislature *of South Carolina of a Court 
of Claims, he was appointed, much against his 
wish and that of his son Robert, who asked his 
friends not to vote for his father's appointment, 
Judge of that court, and before the court met he 
was appointed its President. 

Judge Aldrich has been most unfortunate in 
the loss of two libraries: the first, which had 
been selected in a practice of forty years, and 
■was perhaps the best library of its kind in South 
Carolina, out of Charleston, was burnt by Sher- 
man's raiders; the second, which he had accu- 
mulated since the war, was burnt during the 
excited campaign of 1876 by some colored 
members of the Republican party. In these in- 
cendiary outrages were destroyed all his cor- 
respondence with the most prominent men of 
the State for half a century, and every speech 
and argument during his long legal career, and 
thus the whole labor of his life has been lost. 
His success at the Bar as an advocate is univer- 
sally admitted and acknowledged throughout the 
State. Few lawyers have achieved greater tri- 
umphs. His great effort in Georgia, the defence 
of Dillon for killing Red, is still spoken of as 
one of the most brilliant forensic displays. 
Dillon was a Radical, and in the defence his 
counsel had to encounter not only political 
prejudice, but a public opinion formed by an 
indignation meeting of the citizens, which 
passed resolutions of the most inflammatory and 
denunciatory character. The Judge was equal 
to the occasion, and his nerve was only sur- 
passed by his eloquence. His last appearance 



at the Bar, either in South Carolina or Georgia, 
was in the Doughty divorce case, only a few 
days before his restoration to the Bench. In 
that case he is said to have surpassed himself. 

This sketch cannot be closed without an an- 
ecdote of one of his early triumphs. It was 
a case of habeas corpus, in which the mother 
was suing her husband for the custody of her 
nursing infant. The mother had left her 
drunken husband and gone back to her father, 
with her baby; the father stole the child, and 
when he was arrested, under the writ, carried 
the child to jail with him. He appeared in 
court with the child in his arms, which he was 
nursing from a bottle. While the Judge was 
pleading for the rights of the mother to nourish 
it at her bosom, something that he said must 
have touched some chord in the father's heart, 
for he rose from his seat, the big tears trickling 
down his cheeks, and, without uttering a word, 
put the baby in the mother's lap, left the court- 
house, and has not been heard of from that day. 

During Governor Bonham's administration he 
was sent on a mission to the Confederate Gov- 
ernment, at Richmond, with an offer from the 
State of South Carolina to build and organize a 
line of steamships between Charleston and Eu- 
rope, for the purpose of importing munitions of 
war for the government, and clothing, medi- 
cines, etc., etc., for the troops, proposing by 
this means to entirely support the sixty thousand 
South Carolina troops in the field, and thus re- 
lieve the government of a great burden. The 
scheme, although approved by the government, 
was rendered impracticable through the claims 
of the different departments for some consider- 
able space in the ships to import supplies for 
their different departments. If the State took 
the risk of furnishing the ships and running the 
blockade, for the supply of her own troops, the 
Governor thought it unreasonable in the govern- 
ment to claim any portion of the space in the 
vessels supplied by State patriotism for the use 
of her own citizens. 

He married, in February, 1841, Martha, 
daughter of Louis Malone Ayer, who represented 
Barnwell in the Legislature and Senate for over 



136 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




thirty consecutive years, and has eight children, 
two sons and six daughters. Alfred Aldrich, 
his eldest son, is a planter on the paternal estate 
in Barnwell ; Robert Aldrich, who was for sev- 
eral years associated in practice with his father, 
is now a member of the House of Representa- 
tives and Chairman of the Judiciary Committee; 
and two of his daughters, Mrs. Rosa Aldrich 
and Mrs. H. W. Richardson, are married. 



DR. W. H. ANDERSON. 

Alabama. 

Ql^ILLIAM HENRY ANDERSON was born 
in Richmond, Va., May 6th, 1820. The 
Andersons are of Scotch-Irish descent, 
and emigrated to this country about two 
hundred years ago. James Anderson, 
the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, held 
the position of King's Armorer at the breaking 
out of the Revolutionary War : he took part in 
the struggle for independence, and was taken 
prisoner while in New York by the British, be- 
cause of the value of his services as an artificer. 
Le Roy Anderson, his son, was a highly culti- 
vated scholar, and spoke seven or eight different 
languages fluently : he was educated, at William 
and Mary College, Virginia, where he was the 
classmate of John Randolph, of Roanoke, and 
Governor Tazewell. He devoted his life to the 
advancement of education, and was the principal 
of several Female High Schools in Lynchburg 
and other parts of Virginia. He was one of the 
originators and trustees of the University of the 
South at Suwanee, Fla. He married Hannah 
Southgate, daughter of Wright Southgate, an 
officer of the English navy in the last century, 
who resigned his commission and emigrated to 
America. He was the intimate friend of Chief- 
Justice Marshall and William Wirt, and, some 
years previous to his death, donated over forty 
thousand dollars to churches and charitable in- 
stitutions. Robert Anderson, brother of Le 
Roy Anderson, was Adjutant-General in the 
war of 1812-15, and will be long remembered 
in the lower part of Virginia for his gallant dash 



with three hundred men, in which he surprised 
and fu; to flight three thousand British troops. 
He was an accomplished lawyer and a man of 
fortune, and lived to a good old age. 

Dr. Le Roy Anderson, of Sumter county, 
Ala., a brother of Dr. William H. Anderson, 
was a physician of prominence in his district, 
and wrote some papers that attracted consider- 
able attention. Another brother, Dr. Washing- 
ton F. Anderson, is a surgeon of considerable 
eminence in Utah Territory, and was Surgeon 
to the late Brigham Young. He went out to 
California in 1849, but, his health failing, he 
was compelled to seek a greater altitude, and, 
in 1852, settled at Salt Lake City. 

William Henry Anderson received his early 
education at home, under the personal super- 
intendence of his accomplished father, until he 
reached his sixteenth year. He entered William 
and Mary College in 1839, and, having taken 
two courses, graduated thence in 1841. While 
at William and Mary he took a course of private 
lessons in medicine under Professor Millingten. 
He then entered the Medical Department of the 
University of Virginia, and was graduated M. D. 
in 1842. Among his cotemporaries at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia were John Randolph Tucker, 
Bishop Lay of Easton, Maryland, and Musco 
R. H. Garnett, a lawyer of high standing of 
Richmond, Va., who was killed during the war. 
After graduation he went to Sumter county, 
Ala., and took his brother's place, practising 
medicine there twelve months. From thence 
he went to Baltimore, and became a resident 
physician at the Baltimore Almshouse Hospital, 
attending a course of lectures there for eight 
months. He then attended a course of lectures in 
Philadelphia, and went from there to New York, 
where he spent a year attending a full course 
of lectures at the University of the City of New 
York, and visiting Bellevue Hospital daily with 
a private instructor. Early in 1S46 he visited 
Europe, where he remained about four years, 
studying medicine and natural history. He 
spent a year in Paris attending the lectures of 
Roux, Velpeau, Jobert, and Couveilhier, and of 
Andral, Magendie, and Claude Bernard, taking 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



137 



an eight months' private course with the latter, 
and making physiology his specialty. He also 
visited Berlin, Edinburgh, and London, attend- 
ing lectures in each of those cities. He was in 
Paris all through the Revolution of 1848, and 
saw its rise and culmination, and, in connection 
with that struggle, saw an immense amount of 
military surgical operations. He returned to 
America in the latter part of 1849, an d settled 
in Mobile, where he has since continued to prac-' 
tise. From 1853 to 1857 he was associated in 
partnership with Dr. G. A. Ketchum. He was 
one of the projectors of the Medical College of 
Alabama, and took an active part in its organ- 
. ization in 1858, and has been Professor of Physi- 
ology and Dean of the Faculty ever since its 
foundation. Dr. Anderson was a member of 
the original Committee appointed by the State 
Medical Association to ascertain the number of 
insane persons in the State, and their report 
resulted in the building and organization of the 
Alabama Insane Hospital at Tuscaloosa, one of 
the most perfect institutions of the kind in the 
South, which was opened in July, 1861. At the 
outbreak of the civil war all the students except 
four — one hundred and thirty-two in all — and 
all the Professors of the Medical College of 
Alabama went into the Confederate service. 
Dr. Anderson went into the field as Surgeon to 
the Twenty-first Alabama regiment. After three 
months' service, he was detached by the Sur- 
geon-General and made Medical Purveyor of 
the Military District commanded by General 
Bragg. As Purveyor, he imported large quanti- 
ties of medicine by-running the blockade, besides 
having five or six distilleries under his charge, 
with two large potteries, carpenter-shops, tin- 
shops, sewing-shops, and thus . furnished and 
manufactured everything that was used in the 
hospitals of the South. He was first stationed 
at Dauphin Island, at the mouth of Mobile bay, 
and from there removed to Okalona, and thence 
to Montgomery, where he established a chem- 
ical depot and manufactured everything that was 
possible, having at least five hundred men em- 
ployed in his various distilleries and workshops. 
He bought up large quantities of teas, groceries; 



liquors, etc., making Montgomery his depot, 
and when, in the early part of 1865, General 
Wilson was threatening that city, he removed 
twenty-eight car-loads of medical stores to 
Macon, Ga., making that his general depot, 
and was there overtaken by General Wilson 
when he raided that city. After the war he re- 
turned to Mobile, where he has since conducted 
an extensive practice. Dr. Anderson has passed 
through seven epidemics of yellow fever in 
Mobile, of which that of 1853 was the most ex- 
tensive, when there were about one thousand 
deaths in a population of about twenty thousand. 
Dr. Anderson has always taken an active part 
in the proceedings of the Medical Association 
of the State of Alabama, of which he was the 
Orator in 185 1 and in 1871, and several times 
its representative in the American Medical As- 
sociation. He was among the first to assist in 
furthering the progress of the Public Health Act 
and the Act to regulate the practice of medicine 
in Alabama. He has been a member of the 
Mobile Medical Society for the past thirty years, 
and has twice been its President. He is a mem- 
ber of the American Medical Association, and, 
in 1854, was Chairman of its Committee on 
Medical Education, and prepared the report, 
which was published in the "Transactions." 
Among his contributions to medical literature 
may be mentioned, "A detail of experiments, 
by Magendie and Bernard, on living animals," 
written for the American Journal of Medical 
Sciences, on his return from Paris, and descrip- 
tive of a gigantic series of experiments in which 
hundreds of living animals were experimented 
on at a cost of many thousands of francs ; an 
article on " Scarlet Fever," New Orleans Medi- 
cal Journal '; "The Use of Cod-liver Oil in 
Various Diseases," New Orleans Medical Jour- 
nal; "A Biographical Sketch of the late Dr. I. 
C. Nott," delivered before the Medical Associa- 
tion of the State of Alabama; "Report on 
Dengue," Transactions of Medical Association 
of Alabama; " Pneumogastric Nerve," Trans- 
actions of Medical Association of Alabama; 
article on "Malaria," read before the Mobile 
Medical Society; and some chapters on " Clima- 



13* 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



tology," in Berney's Hand-Book of Alabama. 
Dr. Anderson is a member of the Episcopal 
Church, and a vestryman of Christ Church, 
Mobile. He was one of the School Commis- 
sioners of that city before the war, and is now 
one of the Medical Directors and Medical Ex- 
aminer of the Alabama Gold Life Insurance 
Company. 

As an example of Dr. Anderson's literary 
abilities, we make a few extracts from an oration 
delivered before the Alabama State Medical 
Association in March, 1871 : 

" In our own immediate profession, inventions 
and discoveries are daily adding to our store of 
knowledge, and overwhelming us with their 
effects. In the single branch of organic chem- 
istry a flood of light has been thrown on the 
pathway of science. If the most celebrated 
chemist of thirty years ago could awaken sud- 
denly from a Rip Van Winkle sleep and peruse 
a volume published during the past year, he 
would be so dazzled with the display that he 
would be inclined to retire to his couch, and to 
bury his senses once more in forgetfulness. 
The science of his day had no terms to express 
the compounds that are now familiar to the 
merest tyro of the art. So rapidly has develop- 
ment gone on, that new words have to be manu- 
factured in order to convey the proper ideas, 
and even the great Davy himself, who was the 
authority for the world at large, could now learn 
from the youthful student facts which his imagi- 
nation in its wildest mood had never dreamed 
of. Science is now the order of the day. 
Statesmanship has seen its palmiest era. Litera- 
ture, so far as it could please the fancy, culmi- 
nated in the generation that preceded us. The 
poetry of the past will perhaps touch and culti- 
vate the heart of the future, quite as much as any 
that will be sung in our day. Painting reached 
the height of its glory, and a glorious eminence 
it was, long years before we were born. But 
science, though active even with our ancestors, 
is now showing her herculean strength and elu- 
cidating every department of human knowledge. 
In a discussion in the French Academy not quite 
a quarter of a century ago, I heard the greatest 



of living surgeons say that surgery had reached 
its climax, and that little hope of improvement 
was to be expected. How false was the prophecy ! 
Since that period a new branch has been cheated, 
and the well-directed knife has carried health £.n I 
happiness into a thousand forlorn and miserable 
households. Alabama here comes in for her tri- 
umph, and in the person of her accomplished 
Sims, has carried her medical fame into every 
portion of civilized Europe. Montgomery saw 
the sun of his genius rise within her borders ; 
now she sees it in its meridian splendor throwing 
its light upon the most distant nations. Be proud 
of him, my fellow-members from Montgomery, 
for he has done for suffering humanity as much 
as any philanthropist who ever devoted his life 
for ^ e amelioration of mankind. 

"It is thought by many that surgery is an art, 
and that he who manipulates well is the most 
skilful man. That may have been the case with 
the surgery of the past, but it does not apply to 
the surgery of our day. We not only claim it as 
a science, but one requiring the clearest head 
and the stoutest heart. Let it not be thought 
that the true surgeon has no sympathetic chord 
in his bosom to vibrate for the suffering of his 
patient. He is human like ourselves, and ought 
rather to be admired for the steady hand which 
can inflict pain on a fellow-being for the purpose 
of doing ulterior good. 

"It is, perhaps, gentlemen, in physiology that 
more rapid strides have been made than in any 
other branch of our science. The firmament of 
medical literature is brilliant with the names of 
these observers. Their researches are so minute 
that they almost baffle human comprehension, 
and it takes a good mathematical scholar to fol- 
low out their calculations. I mentioned that a 
certain amount of labor required for food a 
pound of meat and a pound of bread to produce 
it. I wish now to explain to the audience how 
this calculation is made. It is known to you 
that the human body is constantly undergoing a 
change. All the particles that are in a given 
part of the body to-day will not be there to- 
morrow. Some of them are broken down, dis- 
integrated, and escape with the breath, the per- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



i39 



spiration, and other secretions. By the breath 
alone more than seven ounces of the solid sub- 
stance of our bodies is daily expelled in a gas- 
eous form. To keep the body in a state of in- 
tegrity, however, new particles are replaced, and 
such take their origin mostly from the food that 
we eat. By a singular and complicated process 
going on in a myriad of infinitesimal workshops, 
the food is elaborated and changed into muscle, 
bone, brain, hair, and all the other ingredients 
that go to make up the sum total of the human 
form. Thus are the effacing fingers of decay 
continually consuming our substance, while the 
vital architect within is keeping pace with the 
loss, and adding new matter to take the place of 
the old. How then, it has been asked, is per- 
sonal identity maintained if this ceaseless change 
is going on? An agreeable writer answers in 
this wise: The oxygen that departs seems to 
whisper its secret to the oxygen that arrives; 
and thus while the non ego shifts and changes, 
the ego remains intact. Life, then, is a wave, 
which in no two consecutive moments of its ex- 
istence is composed of the same particles. But 
the wave passes on transporting its mysterious 
freight to other shores, for other and important 
uses. Now physiological chemistry teaches us 
the exact amount of the daily loss. It teaches 
us also the exact amount of nutriment in every 
species of food that we eat. If this were all, the 
calculation would be easily made. But it goes 
farther than this. It acquaints us with the 
amount of loss produced -by the various move- 
ments of the body. The blacksmith who works 
at the anvil from sunrise to sunset ; the pedes- 
trian who walks one mile or ten miles, as well as 
the lazy drone of the tropics, who sits all day in 
the shade, half asleep and half awake, lose their 
muscular substance somewhat in proportion to 
the amount of exercise they take. Even the 
evolution of thought, whether it result in the soft 
sentiment of the poet, or in the philosophical in- 
duction of the scholar or the statesman, is ac- 
companied with loss of substance, and this loss 
must be made up by appropriate food. Modern 
physiology, I say, can accurately determine what 
kind of food is best adapted to the various work, 



and the amount that is necessary to produce. Is 
all' this idle and curious speculation ? By no 
means. The amelioration of our fellow-man is 
the consequence of it. 

"Under humane legislation it finds its applica- 
tion in the work-house, in the prison, among 
the unfortunates of the lunatic asylum, in the 
damp and unwholesome mine far beneath the 
surface of the earth, in the various factories, 
where men, women and children' toil from day- 
light to the late hours of the night, in order to 
keep soul and body together. To an enlight- 
ened mind it suggests the appropriate nourish- 
ment for severe intellectual labor ; so that when 
the celebrated Agassiz told his friends that he 
must retire to the sea-shore to get food for his 
wasted brain, he was telling them but the plain 
and simple truth ; or when the aged Humboldt, 
in the midst of his abstruse calculations, called 
frequently for dilute phosphoric acid for a 
beverage, he was doing only that which the 
daily laborer does when he asks for meat in pro- 
portion to his work 

"In another field of physiological research, 
the discoveries have not been less vast or less 
important. The subtle analysis of the blood in 
health and in disease has been marked with the 
most important consequences. The same kind 
of analysis into the poisons of noxious vapors 
has revealed a host of preventives that the phy- 
sicians of the past knew nothing about. The 
high powers of the microscope that bring within 
the range of our sight the minute creatures of 
the hidden world, are now opening an unex- 
plored region that none but the scientific physi- 
cian can ever travel in. The theories of the 
past are giving place to the facts of the present, 
and to the brightest hopes for the future. 

" Pestilence once kept great cities at a stand- 
ard population, but science, aided by wise legis- 
lation, now keeps it at bay, and though we may 
never eradicate it, we may still be able to keep 
its blight away from the community, and thus 
save from premature destruction the fairest and 
best of our race. The microscopic researches 
into the nervous system have lately developed 
certain masses of nerve substance in every por- 



140 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



tion of the body, acting as distinct centres of 
nervous influence, and which, for a time, can 
keep up an independent action in any given 
part. This promises to be a very important 
discovery, inasmuch as it tends to elucidate some 
physiological phenomena that could not be satis- 
factorily accounted for. The vitality of some 
of the cold-blooded reptiles, even after the brain 
has been removed, has long puzzled the physi- 
ologists. The movements of the decapitated 
animal were referred entirely to the reflex action 
of the spinal chord, but this is hardly enough 
to account for the long continued persistence of 
vitality. It is highly probable that these nerve 
masses come in as an important factor, and they 
may also have much to do with those strange 
motions that we witness in persons recently 
dead of cholera, as well as other local move- 
ments during life, the cause of which has 
hitherto been obscure. You may ask, of what 
use is all this? You cannot restore the patient's 
life, nor can you prolong the existence of the 
reptile more than an hour after taking off his 
head. That is true enough. But having ascer- 
tained that these little nerve masses, until lately 
undiscovered, can generate power under appro- 
priate stimuli, we are led to use such stimulus in 
the bed-room of the sick. It teaches us how to 
give power to the paralytic, to restore to health 
the functions of various parts of the body by 
local means, without subjecting the suffering in- 
valid to continued doses of medicine. 

"One of the most important developments 
of modern science is the well-established fact 
that rigid cleanliness will keep away disease. 
Some of the microscopic objects causing disease 
increase so rapidly that a thousand or a mil- 
lion will be generated in an hour. The very 
atmosphere that we breathe is full of them. The 
surgeon lays down his knife, and picks it up 
again swarming with objects that he cannot see, 
and transplants them in the wound he is trying 
to heal. The nurse often unconsciously does 
the same thing when not scrupulously particular 
with his towels and sponges. Nature furnishes 
the poison, but science steps in with the anti- 
dote and prevents its taking effect ; and the 



result of all such researches is, that the cleanest 
cities, the cleanest prison-houses, the cleanest 
hospitals, are by far the most healthy. Water, 
however, is not the only agent to be used. It 
must contain in solution certain disinfectants 
which were .not discovered by accident, but 
which were only suggested after patient, labori- 
ous study, and often repeated experiments. But, 
gentlemen, I must close this portion of my ad- 
dress. All honor, however, to the great names 
that have distinguished themselves in this de- 
partment. It gives me pain to say that some of 
these great men incline to materialism. Their 
investigations bring them so near to the point 
where /^organic matter springs, as it were, into 
life, that they leap over the little chasm, and 
embrace the doctrine that life itself is evolved 
from matter. In other words, that if they could 
only go a little further, they could create an 
animal or a vegetable of the lowest order, and 
then that such creation could go on to perfect 
itself by natural and artificial causes, until it 
culminated in the giant oak of the forest, the 
great leviathan that swims the deep, or even the 
majestic form of man himself. In the pride of 
their really comprehensive intellects, they dis- 
like to acknowledge that there is anything 
behind the veil which they may not see. They 
are blinded to the finger of the great Creator 
from whom life in its humblest form always 
proceeds. They can attribute to Him every 
power, and yet life, the subtlest and most 
miraculous of all essences, they wish to seize 
from His grasp, and make it subject to the 
changes that take place in certain material 
gases, under what they call favorable circum- 
stances. Vain and deluded philosophers ! Is 
there not enough in the great range of nature to 
occupy their speculations without going to this 
doubtful and uncertain ground? Are they not 
satisfied to investigate His laws, without dis- 
puting with Him the palm of creating the first 
and most important of all of His wonderful 
works ? Let us hope that they will waste no 
more time in these idle speculations which are 
fraught with so much danger to the noblest of 
all of God's creatures. Better that maniind 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



141 



should remain in letter ignorance, and grope 
through life like the uncultured savage, than to 
risk the loss of their immortal souls by attempt- 
ing to scrutinize too closely the works of Na- 
ture's God. For myself, gentlemen, I am the 
humblest of the students of nature. What I 
know is as nothing compared with what there is 
yet to learn ; but the more I study of it, the 
more do I see the Divine hand guiding, guard- 
ing, creating everything. More especially do I 
see it in mind — mind, which in the twinkling 
of an eye can compass earth and heaven ; mind 
which can give rise to all the soft sentiments, 
the tender emotions, the noble and generous 
feelings which we know we possess. Can all 
■these flow from matter? — matter which putrifies 
and perishes ; which to-day assumes one shape, 
to-morrow another, and on whose very existence 
ceaseless change is written. I cannot believe 
that there is any chemistry subtle enough to 
analyze an emotion of the mind. I cannot be- 
lieve that the refined and exquisite sentiments 
that originated in the brain of Milton, of 
Shakespeare, of Tennyson — sentiments that have 
enchained the world, and kept whole nations 
of intellectual men in breathless suspense on 
account of their beauty and sublimity — could 
possibly flow from matter. I am unwilling to 
think that the lofty conceptions of Cicero, the 
burning genius of Michael Angelo, the glowing 
effulgence that radiated from the inspired brain 
of Isaiah, could have their origin in perishable 
matter. No, rather would I humbly confess my 
ignorance, and leave the field unsatisfied. 

"Now, if mind is, so difficult to analyze, and 
presents sc many barriers to a clear understand- 
ing of its phenomena — if it has baffled the meta- 
physics of Locke, of Hume, of Stewart, and of 
the brilliant host of kindred writers who have 
lived from Aristotle to the present day — how 
much more difficult is it to comprehend the 
enigma of life, that subtle emanation from the 
Supreme Being that pervades the world ; that at- 
tenuated essence which spreads through ocean, 
air, and earth, making green the grass, vocal the 
forest, and joyous the innumerable creatures that 
sport in the sunshine, and sing their perpetual 



hymn of praise in honor of their Creator. A 
distinguished writer, now within the sound of my 
voice, in a public address, which for perspicuity, 
for erudition, for elegance of diction, will com- 
pare with any discourse written in the present 
learned age, has said, ' that an animated atom 
whirling through the proud heart of a Russian 
Czar on Monday morning, may be masticated in 
a carrot by the meanest of his vassals on Satur- 
day night.' Aye, but who animated the atom? 
Who gave it life and action so to whirl, and hav- 
ing whirled to its satisfaction, then to metamor- 
phose itself into an infinitesimal part of a carrot 
or a turnip? Did matter give it life? Did not 
its animation rather come from the great First 
Cause, who shows His awful grandeur in the 
thunder and the lightning, His ample benevo- 
lence in the beauty of the green earth, now robed 
in all the colors of the rainbow, then hushed in 
darkness and in silence, only to burst forth once 
more into all the splendors of returning day? 
No, I say, I would leave the mystery to be solved 
in some higher state of existence that I may here- 
after enjoy, and in the midst of my perplexity 
exclaim with the poet: 

" ' Thou great First Cause least understood, 
Who all my sense confined ; 
To know but this, that Thou art good, 
And I myself am blind' 

" I have regretted that some of our great au- 
thors are becoming materialists. Writers outside 
of the profession reproach us with materialism. 
A very eminent French divine complained a 
year or two ago that materialism was taught in 
Paris with the sanction of the Minister of Public 
Instruction. He says it is triumphant in the 
Medical School of Paris. I do not wonder that 
any doctrine, no matter how monstrous, should 
be taught in France, but I am sorry to see pub- 
lic lecturers following in their footsteps in Eng- 
land, and even in our own country. The prin- 
ciple of life neither comes from matter nor goes 
to matter. When its earthly tenement, either 
by disease or decay, becomes too imperfect to 
contain it, the flame may flicker, and the spark 
go out to our eyes, but it still exists as it has 



142 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



done throughout the eternity of the past, and as 
it'will do through all the endless ages of the fu- 
ture. The thought is beautifully expressed by 
Tennyson in the following lines : 

" ' My own dim life should teach me this, 
That life shall live forever more, 
That nothing walks with aimless feet, 
That not one life shall be destroyed 
And cast as rubbish on the void, 
When God has made the pile complete.' 

"Where, gentlemen, will all this end? Does 
it not inevitably lead to materialism of the 
grossest character? Does it not root out the 
very foundations of religion? Does it not put a 
seal on the wistful eyes of faith, and lead us 
eventually to worship at the shrine of reason ? 
Give to these philosophers what they claim. 
Believe with them that life is the offspring of 
matter ; what then will they ask ? They will 
say: If life comes from matter, and mind is the 
direct offspring of matter, then why not the soul, 
the ' so-called ' immortal soul ? Let us grasp 
that, too, and we will have absorbed all things, 
both physical and material, made them all the 
offspring of these miraculous gases, and thus be- 
come entirely independent of the ' unknown 
God ! ' And then, my fellow-members — what 
then ? Why, thus, insensibly, they will lead us 
from the altar of our worship. They will turn 
our temples, now dedicated to the great Jeho- 
vah, into schools of human philosophy. They 
will erect statues to the goddess of Reason, and, 
like the heathen in his blindness, we too will 
bow down to wood and stone. They will burn 
incense to other gods than the one whom we are 
taught to adore. Then will have vanished from 
our hearts and our hearth-stones all that makes 
life cherished and dear to us. Then will that 
beautiful code of deep-toned morality, that 
sweet system of unfeigned piety, the holy relig- 
ion of our Saviour, be torn from our present 
lively faith, and we shall be plunged into a 
chaos of unbelief, which will leave us nothing 
but misery and despair. These materialistic 
philosophers, as a general rule, deny that they 
are materialists, but say that they are compelled 



to use such terms and words as are generally ap- 
plied to matter, in order to make their specula- 
tions understood by others. To this we have no 
objection, but we contend that after borrowing 
these words, they still have proved nothing. 
After all of their elaborate and seductive argu- 
ments, they cannot explain to us what life is, nor 
can they ever make us understand the nature of 
a vital process. It is all speculation. They say, 
give us a few simple combinations of oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, and under fa- 
vorable circumstances, an animal is formed. 
Now the favorable circumstances, to use a com- 
mon expression, is just where the Almighty 
comes in and says, ' Let there be life,' just as He 
did at the dawn of creation, when His sublime- 
fiat went forth in the words, ' Let there be light, 
and the light was. ' " 

Dr. Anderson is a gentleman of fine literary 
taste. His father was a highly cultivated 
scholar and a teacher of much distinction in 
his day. From him the Doctor received a bet- 
ter training in languages than falls to the lot of 
most men, and also imbibed a decided taste for 
the belles lettres. He stands among the fore- 
most in the profession in Mobile, and is a uni- 
versal favorite with his professional brethren. 
He is an active member of the Board of Health, 
and a regular attendant at the meetings of the 
State Medical Association. 

Having occupied the chair of Physiology in 
the Medical College of Alabama since its foun- 
dation, his lectures have been finished specimens 
of erudition and good taste. As Dean of the 
Faculty of the Medical College, his addresses at 
the various commencements have been elegant in 
character and chaste in tone. He is an accom- 
plished orator, eloquent and powerful, with 
graceful delivery, carrying the sympathies of his 
audience with him, and at an impromptu ad- 
dress is unequalled. His practice is chiefly 
among the elite of Mobile, among whom he is a 
general favorite. His active professional life 
has not allowed him much leisure for other pur- 
suits, but his orations and addresses and various 
contributions to the literature of his profession 
bear evidence of a refined and cultivated mind, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



143 



and some occasional poetical pieces which have 
appeared at various times are polished specimens 
of graceful verse. When among his intimate 
friends at social gatherings, he is unusually happy 
in hitting off some impromptu which has suffi- 
cient good-humored satire to make it piquant, 
and he bears the reputation of being the Oliver 
Wendell Holmes of Alabama. 

Unambitious and averse to notoriety, he is 
deeply imbued with a strong sense of duty, and 
his high moral character bears the impress of a 
fervent Christian spirit. Thoroughly domestic 
in his habits and tastes, and of a social and 
amiable disposition, he possesses the high regard 
and warm affection of a large circle of friends. 

Dr. Anderson was married in 1851 to Ann 
Louisa Witherspoon, daughter of the late Dr. 
John R. Witherspoon, of South Carolina, and 
has one grown-up daughter. 



COLONEL J. B. WALTON. 

Louisiana. 

AMES BURDGE WALTON was born, 
November 30th, 1813, at Newark, N. J., 
and is the son of Mark Walton, mer- 
chant, of that city. The Waltons are 
^ of English descent, two brothers of that 
name having come to this country from the Isle 
of Jersey about the middle of the seventeenth 
century ; John Walton took up his residence in 
one of the Northern States, and was afterwards 
lost at sea, while Joseph Walton settled in Geor- 
gia. From the latter Mark Walton was de- 
scended; he was educated and married in 
Newark, and in 1809 removed to New Orleans, 
La.; and in the war of 1812 distinguished him- 
self in the cavalry service. William Burdge, the 
maternal grandfather of the subject of this 
sketch, was a man of wealth and leisure in New- 
ark, N. J. 

James B. Walton received his primary educa- 
tion at an academy in New Orleans, and 
afterwards entered the Louisiana College, whence 
he graduated in 1831. After leaving college he 
established himself in the wholesale commission 



& 



iU -', 



and grocery business in New Orleans, under the 
firm of Walton & Kemp, and during the exist- 
ence of that firm conducted the largest business 
of that kind in the "Crescent City." At 
eighteen years of age he volunteered into the 
Washington Guards, then the crack military 
company of New Orleans, under the command 
of General Persifer F. Smith, a distinguished 
soldier, afterwards the hero of Contreras in the 
Mexican war. In 1846, prior to the Mexican 
war, the Washington regiment was formed ; it 
was more properly speaking a legion, as it 
included infantry, cavalry and artillery. It was 
commanded by General P. F. Smith, and J. B. 
Walton was, first, Adjutant, and afterwards Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel. Under a requisition upon the 
State of Louisiana for a brigade of four regi- 
ments of infantry for service in Mexico, General 
Smith's Washington regiment volunteered, and 
was the first volunteer regiment in the field. 
General P. F. Smith having been promoted to 
General of Brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Walton 
became its Colonel. They arrived on the Rio 
Grande immediately after the battles of Palo 
Alto and Resaca de la Palma, and served under 
General Z. Taylor until the expiration of the 
term of the twelve-months volunteers. The regi- 
ment then returned to New Orleans, and was 
mustered out of service by Colonel Walton, who 
then returned to Mexico and joined General P. 
F. Smith on the Vera Cruz line. He received 
an appointment on General Smith's staff, and 
with him followed along in the rear of the army 
in its advance on Mexico ; was present at the 
battle of Molino del Rey; and at the City of 
Mexico on the day of its surrender. He remained 
in Mexico with the army, and was present at the 
signing of the treaty of peace at Guadaloupe 
Hidalgo. The war over, he returned to New 
Orleans and resumed the commission business. 
During President Fillmore's administration he 
was Deputy Surveyor of the port of New Orleans. 
In 1852 he held the position of Secretary to the 
State Constitutional Convention which framed 
the Louisiana constitution of that year. In the 
same year he was appointed Secretary to the 
Mayor of New Orleans, Charles M. Waterman. 



144 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In 1859 he retired from the commission busi- 
ness and estaolished nimself as a real-estate 
agent, with which avocation he has been identi- 
fied ever since. The Washington Artillery, 
which had formed a company of the celebrated 
Washington regiment during the Mexican war, 
kept up its organization afterwards under various 
commanders, but had dwindled down to a very 
small number when, in 1S52, Colonel Walton 
was elected its Captain. It then, through the 
prestige of Colonel Walton as an efficient officer, 
rapidly increased in numbers, and improved in 
drill and discipline, so that at the outbreak of 
the civil war it was fit for efficient service. It 
was first called into active duty under the 
authority of the State of Louisiana, and sent, 
with companies of the Orleans Cadets, the 
Louisiana Guards, the Crescent Rifles, the 
Chasseurs-a-pieds, and the Sarsfield Guards 
(271 rank and file"), all under the command 
of Captain J. B. Walton, to take possession 
of the United States military post at Baton 
Rouge, one of the largest Federal military and 
ordnance posts' on this continent. The United 
States arsenal was surrendered by Major Has- 
kins, in command of about eighty United States 
soldiers, with all the ordnance and stores, Janu- 
ary 12th, 1S61. Formal possession was taken by 
the New Orleans and Baton Rouge troops on the 
following day, with bands playing and colors fly- 
ing, during the firing of a salute of fifteen guns. 
This, the first serious act of hostility to Federal 
authority, aroused the whole country to the con- 
sideration of the grave situation in which the 
Southern people found themselves placed. On 
the 9th of February the command was organized 
as a battalion of two companies, and Captain 
Walton elected Major. On the 2 2d of February, 
on the occasion of the presentation of a mag- 
nificent flag to the Washington Artillery by the 
ladies of New Orleans, Senator J. P. Benjamin, 
in his presentation address, startled his hearers 
by his bold, emphatic and eloquent announce- 
ment that war was inevitable, warning all to go 
home and prepare for the grand ordeal the end 
of which no man could know. The officers and 
men were then constantly drilled, and instructed 



as artillery and infantry, and the battalion, 
increased to four companies, was mustered 
into the Confederate service, May 26th, 1861, 
in all 285 rank and file. Captain Walton on 
this day received his commission as Major of 
Artillery in the Confederate States Army. The 
citizens, the ladies especially, lavishly supplied 
the men with necessaries and luxuries, money in 
large sums being contributed freely. The bat- 
talion was splendidly equipped and supplied, in 
a manner perhaps unequalled by any command 
from the South. 

On May 27th they left for Lynchburg, Va., 
en route for the seat of war, and the enthusiasm 
of their fellow-citizens was unexampled in the 
history of New Orleans. On the line of march 
the streets were crowded to suffocation, the bal- 
conies filled with ladies who showered flowers 
upon the troops ; all distinctions were forgotten 
in the eager desire of all to show their admira- 
tion and do honor to the soldiers going to the 
war. Citizens walked along the lines offering 
their pocket-books to men they did not know, 
fair women bestowed floral offerings on all alike; 
and, amid the suffocating heat, loaded down with 
their heavy clothing, pressed upon by a dense 
crowd that almost impeded their progress, the 
Washington Artillery left New Orleans, amid 
the booming of cannon, the music of the bands, 
and the deafening huzzas of an immense multi- 
tude. Such was the excitement, the heat, and 
fatigue of the march to the railroad depot that 
two of the privates were struck down and ex- 
pired upon the cars when but a few miles distant 
from the city. On leaving New Orleans for the 
front, the armament of the battalion consisted 
of four six-pounder bronze smooth bore guns, 
and four twelve-pounder bronze howitzers ; two 
companies being armed with Springfield mus- 
kets. At Richmond the muskets were turned 
in to the Ordnance Department, and four rifled 
guns, two bronze twelve-pounders, and two 
twenty-four-pounder iron howitzers being added, 
the armament was increased to sixteen field-guns 
with all the appliances of forges, battery-wagons, 
harness, and horses complete. On the 2d of 
June they arrived at Lynchburg, Va., and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



M5 



reached Richmond June 4th, where for three 
weeks they were subjected to strict discipline 
and constant drilling in camp. They received 
their baptism of fire on the banks of Bull Run 
in the battle of July 18th, where General Mc- 
Dowell with 55, 000 infantry, nine regiments of 
cavalry, and 49 pieces of artillery attacked Gen- 
eral Beauregard with 21,883 niuskets, about 
three companies of cavalry, and 29 pieces of 
artillery. The affair resolved itself into an ar- 
tillery duel in which a part of the Washington 
Artillery, with only seven guns, successfully 
maintained its position against a long-trained 
professional opponent, superior in character as 
well as in the number of his weapons, provided 
with improved munitions and every artillery 
appliance, and, at the same time, occupying the 
commanding position. General Beauregard, in 
his report, says: "The skill, the conduct, and 
the soldierly qualities of the Washington Artil- 
lery were all that could be desired. The officers 
and men won for their battalion a distinction 
which I feel assured will never be tarnished." 
It would be impossible in the space at our com- 
mand to relate in detail the history of this bat- 
talion during the four eventful years of the war 
— its history has become a part of the history bf 
that memorable and heroic struggle. The main 
body served in most of the glorious campaigns 
of the Army of Northern Virginia under General 
Lee, and distinguished itself upon many a well- 
fought field. In the first battle of Manassas 
they were heavily engaged, and" contributed 
largely to the total rout of McDowell's magnifi- 
cently appointed army. After this decisive 
battle Major Walton was recommended by Gen- 
erals Johnston and Beauregard for promotion to 
the rank of Colonel of Artillery. No such grade 
being possible at that time in the artillery- 
Major being the highest rank in that branch of 
the service — a law was passed through the Con- 
federate Congress to meet the case, and, on 
receiving his commission, March 26th, 1862, 
Colonel Walton was at once appointed by Gen- 
eral Beauregard Chief of Artillery of the Army 
of the Potomac, remaining, however, in com- 
mand of the Washington Artillery. In the fall 



of 1861 several skirmishes took place at Mun- 
son's Hill, Hall's Hill, and Levvinsville, in 
which the companies of the Washington Artil- 
lery engaged were uniformly successful, and, 
about the middle of December, they went into 
camp on the north side of Bull Run, the posi- 
tion occupied by the Federals on the 18th of 
July. Trees were felled, and buildings and • 
stables erected by young men entirely unaccus- 
tomed and unskilled in such work, and, in a 
short time, a little town was laid out with warm 
and comfortable quarters for the men, and sta- 
bling for three hundred horses. The camp was 
christened " Waltonville " in compliment to the 
commanding officer. In March, 1862, General 
J. E. Johnston, being assigned to the command 
of the Army of Northern Virginia, resolved to 
abandon his position at Manassas and occupy 
the line of the Rappahannock in order to oppose 
General McClellan. The heavy guns in the 
works at Centreville, on Bull Run, and on the 
Potomac, were all removed, and their places 
adroitly supplied with blackened logs, known as 
Quakers, covered with brushwood at their butts, 
giving the appearance of guns from a distance. 
On the 8th of March the Washington Artillery 
abandoned their camp and marched to Rich- 
mond, where they were detained for want of 
transportation : on the 23d of April reached 
Williamsburg, and, on the 25th, Yorktown, 
where they served in the trenches knee-deep in 
mud and water with certain death staring them 
in the face if they but showed their heads above 
the works. General Johnston, finding his posi- 
tion untenable, fell back on Richmond, where 
the Washington Artillery arrived May 8th, hav- 
ing marched the last twenty-three miles in the 
unprecedentedly short time of six hours fifteen 
minutes. On the 13th of May a battery was 
engaged with the enemy's gunboats at Drury's 
Bluff, disabling their flagship "Galena." At 
the battle of Seven Pines the battalion 'captured 
a battery of Napoleon guns, which they were 
allowed to keep in exchange for some of their 
own. On the 3d of June General Robert E. 
Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern 
Virginia. On June 20th Colonel J. B. Walton 



146 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



was appointed Chief of Artillery of the right 
wing of the Army of Northern Virginia, re- 
taining the command of his battalion. The 
battalion was hotly engaged at the battle of 
Mechanicsville, and present at the battles of 
Cold Harbor, Savage Station, Frazier's Farm 
and Malvern Hill, though, much to their 
chagrin, they were generally held in reserve. The 
siege of Richmond being raised and the cam- 
paign ended, all the artillery of the right wing 
under Colonel Walton, as Chief of Artillery, 
was encamped on Almond Creek, two miles 
from Richmond, where they enjoyed a rest of a 
couple of weeks. Upon the reorganization of 
the army, General Longstreet was appointed to 
the command of the First Corps of the army, 
and Colonel Walton was appointed by the Gen 
eral Chief of Artillery of the First Corps. On 
the 10th of August the battalion began its march 
towards Gordonsville, whither the entire army 
was being transferred. In the evening of the 
23d of August, prior to the battle of Rappahan- 
nock Station, Colonel Walton made a recon- 
noissance of the enemy's force, under General 
Pope, and found him strongly entrenched 
behind works on the opposite bank of the Rap- 
pahannock. In the night he silently placed in 
position the different batteries, and at six a. m. 
opened fire along the line. General Lee, in his 
official report of this battle, says: "On the 23d 
of August General Longstreet directed Colonel 
Walton, with the Washington Artillery and other 
batteries of his command, to drive back a force 
of the enemy that had crossed to the south side 
of the Rappahannock. Fire was opened about 
sunrise, and continued with great vigor for 
several hours, the enemy being compelled to 
withdraw with loss." General Longstreet's 
report says: "The enemy's position was soon 
rendered too warm for him, and he took advan- 
tage of a heavy rain-storm to retreat in haste, 
after firing the bridge and the private dwellings 
in its vicinity. Colonel Walton deserves much 
credit for skill in the management of his bat- 
teries." The loss in men killed and wounded, 
and in horses, in this battle was unusually large. 
On the 29th of August, at the second battle of 



Manassas, they arrived on the field at 11.30 A. M. 
to find General Jackson heavily engaged, and 
took position on his right. In forming his line 
of battle, General Longstreet ordered Colonel 
Walton to place his batteries in a commanding 
position between his line and that of General 
Jackson. The accuracy and rapidity of their 
fire elicited the highest encomiums from all the 
officers, and General Jackson, who was intently 
observing the firing, said: "General Long- 
street, your artillery is superior to mine," a 
merited compliment from "old Stonewall" to 
the Washington Artillery. In front of the bat- 
teries the field was covered with dead and 
wounded of the enemy. At 3.30 p. m., having 
silenced his artillery and broken up the advan- 
cing line of infantry, the batteries were with- 
drawn to repair damages and fill the ammunition 
chests, which were nearly empty. On the fol- 
lowing day (August 30th) they captured a bat- 
tery of light 12-pounder Napoleons, with horses 
and harness. The enemy were driven back into 
the woods. General Longstreet, in his official 
report of this battle, says: " The Washington 
Artillery was placed between Jackson and my 
line, and engaged the enemy for several hours in 
a severe and successful artillery duel." 

At Sharpsburg the third company of the bat- 
talion was nearly disabled, only two of the four 
guns being fully manned ; the sharpshooters of 
the enemy were picking off the men of the bat- 
teries and killing and wounding the horses. 
Cooke, in his "Life of Stonewall Jackson," 
says: "As Miller's Battery (Washington Artillery) 
occupied a position directly under the eye of 
General Longstreet, and he saw the valuable 
part it was performing in defending the centre, 
that officer dismounted from his horse, and, as- 
sisted by his Adjutant-General, Major Sorrel, 
Major Fairfax and General Dayton, worked one 
of the guns until the crisis was passed." Gen- 
eral Lee, in his official report, says: "The firm 
front presented by this small force, and the well- 
directed fire of the artillery under Captain Mil- 
ler, of the Washington Artillery, and Captain 
Boyce's South Carolina Battery, checked the 
progress of the enemy, and in about an hour 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



M7 



and a half he retired. Another attack was made 
soon afterwards, a little further to the right, but 
was repulsed by Miller's guns, which continued 
to hold the field. . . . Our artillery, though 
much inferior to that of the- enemy in the num- 
ber of guns and weight of metal, rendered most 
gallant and efficient service throughout, and 
contributed greatly to repulse the attacks on 
every part of the field." General Toombs, in his 
report of this battle, pays a well-merited tribute 
to the second company of the Washington Artil- 
lery, which was attached to his brigade. He says : 
"The company of the Washington Artillery at- 
tached to my own brigade were conspicuous 
throughout the day for courage and good con- 
duct, and largely contributed to every success. 
During the whole connection of this battery with 
my command its officers and men have con- 
ducted themselves everywhere — on the march, in 
the camp, and on the battle-field — as to merit 
and receive my special approbation." General 
Longstreet, in his report, says: "After the 
enemy had been driven back to the creek, form- 
ing two lines, one supporting the other, the bat- 
teries were placed in position to play upon the 
second line, and both lines were eventually 
driven back. Before it was entirely dark the 
hundred thousand men that had been threaten- 
ing our destruction for twelve hours had melted 
away into a few stragglers. ' ' At the battles of 
the Rappahannock, Second Manassas, Boones- 
boro' Gap and Sharpsburg, the Washington 
Artillery lost in the ten days' fighting occupied 
by those battles ninety-eight men killed and 
wounded. General Longstreet, in his official 
report for the summer campaign of 1862, says: 
" I would I could do justice to all of those gal- 
lant officers and men in this^report. As this is 
impossible, I shall only mention those most 
prominently distinguished," and in the list that 
follows we find "Colonel Walton, of the Wash- 
ington Artillery, at Rappahannock Station, 
Manassas Plains (August 29) and Sharpsburg." 
Recrossing the Potomac, we next hear of this 
gallant battalion at the battle of Fredericksburg, 
where they occupied the redoubts on the crest 
of Marge's Hill. The enemy, as early as seven 



o'clock in the morning of December nth, 
opened a tremendous fire from his batteries 
upon the town and upon Marge's Hill, and con- 
tinued it during the entire day, without any 
response from the guns of the battalion, Colonel 
Walton having been cautioned by an order early 
in the day not to enter into an artillery duel, 
but to fire with effect at the infantry and pon- 
toons. On the 1 2th of December the Federal 
forces crossed the Rappahannock, and the bat- 
teries opened a well-directed destructive fire 
upon them whenever they emerged from under 
cover of the bank of the river. On the 13th of 
December the Federals attempted repeatedly to 
carry the heights where the batteries were situ- 
ated, but were as often driven back with terrible 
slaughter. Five separate times heavy masses 
of infantry, supported by light field batteries, 
advanced from the cover of the town, only to 
be driven back each time by the steady and in- 
cessant fire of the guns on Marge's Heights and 
the infantry behind the stone wall in the road 
below. At one time during the afternoon there 
was some apprehension that General Anderson, 
who was holding the left of the line of heights, 
would be forced back, and General Longstreet, 
in order to reassure Colonel Walton as to his 
supports, sent him the following note : 

" Head-quarters First Army Corps, In the Field, 

"December 13th, 1862. 

" Colonel Walton: Do not be uneasy about 
your left. General Anderson has been ordered 
to hold the heights on the left with his whole 
force if necessary. 

"Your obedient servant, 

"G. M. Sorrel, A. A. G. 
" P. S. — We have been observing your prac- 
tice; it is very pretty, and we congratulate you 
upon it. ' ' 

In recognition of the splendid service ren- 
dered by the Battalion Washington Artillery 
in the sanguinary battle of Fredericksburg, the 
following extracts from official reports are made. 
General Lee, in his report to the Secretary of 
War, written on the field, says: "Soon after 
the enemy's repulse on our right, he commenced 



148 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



a series of attacks on our left, with a view of ob- 
taining possession of the heights, immediately 
overlooking the town. Three repeated attacks 
were repulsed in gallant style by the Washing- 
ton Artillery, under Colonel Walton, and a por- 
tion of McLaw's division." General Longstreet, 
in his general order, after the battle, says: "Yet 
notwithstanding 1 know them to be steadfast 
veterans, they have kindled a new admiration 
by the remarkable firmness with which they de- 
fended Marge's Hill. A more frightful attack 
of the enemy has not been seen during the war; 
they approached within thirty paces of your 
lines, again and again returning with fresh men 
to the assault. But you did not yield a step; 
you stood by your post and filled the field with 
slain." General Ransom, who supported with 
his division the batteries in the redoubts, takes 
occasion to say: "Though no part of my com- 
mand, I will not pass over the already famous 
Washington Artillery. Its gallantry and effi- 
ciency are above all praise." General Lee, in 
his official report, says: "They sustained the 
heavy fire of artillery and infantry with un- 
shaken steadiness, and contributed much to the 
repulse of the enemy." And again General 
Longstreet, in his official report, says: "Their 
fire was very destructive and demoralizing in its 
effects, and frequently made gaps in the enemy's 
ranks that could be seen at a distance of a 
mile." Among the names "particularly dis- 
tinguished in the engagement of the 13th of 
December," by General Longstreet, we again 
find " Colonel Walton, of the Washington Ar- 
tillery," who had been absent on sick leave 
previous to the battle, but, though still sick, 
returned to his command two days before the 
first gun was fired. At the end of December 
the battalion was ordered into winter-quarters 
at Chesterfield, Caroline county, Va., where 
they erected comfortable houses, and did their 
best to pass pleasantly the' dull months until 
spring. The following letter, showing what was 
needed to place the battalion in a condition for 
service, was at this time addressed by Colonel 
Walton, through General Longstreet, to the 
War Department : 



" Head-quarters Battalion Washington Artillery, 
" Near Fredericksburg, Decernber 2S///, 1S62. 

" Major G. M. Sorre;., Assistant-Adjutant 
General : With the view to a complete reorgani- 
zation of the Battalion Washington Artillery, I 
take the liberty to submit for the approval of 
the General commanding the following state- 
ments and suggestions: This battalion was mus- 
tered into the service of the Confederate States 
in May, 1861, for the term of the war, and it 
has served constantly in the field since that date. 
By casualties in battle and small loss by disease, 
by discharges and transfers, the rank and file for 
duty to-day numbers only 228 men — 58 being 
absent, sick and wounded, and 16 absent, miss- 
ing, or without leave. The armament consisted, 
on leaving Richmond, in August last, of bat- 
teries of four guns to a company, four companies, 
making sixteen guns; to-day, in consequence of 
damages in action and the loss of men, the bat- 
teries of the first and third companies — Squires 
and Miller — have been reduced to a section of 
two guns each, Squires two 3-inch rifles, and 
Miller two 12-pounder Napoleons. Captains 
Eshleman and Richardson have each two 12- 
pounder Napoleons and two 12-pounder howitz- 
ers. I propose now, with reference to the future 
continued efficiency of the battalion, to recruit 
the several companies to at least 125 men rank 
and file each, and to make the batteries all six- 
gun batteries of rifles and Napoleons — say one 
battery of 3-inch rifles and three batteries of 12- 
pounder light Napoleons — my experience ap- 
proving this composition as being the best for 
all service. To accomplish the first most im- 
portant object, the recruiting my ranks, it will 
become necessary to draw from within the 
enemy's lines in Louisiana those young men 
of the class of which this battalion is composed, 
who, although loyal to the South and patriotic, 
are unwilling to subject themselves to conscrip- 
tion as that authority is now exercised in Louis- 
iana. I am advised on all hands that if the 
proper means are used, there can be drawn 
from New Orleans and the adjacent parishes a 
very large number of young men who are will- 
ing and even desirous to enter the service, they 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



149 



only asking that they may make their selection 
of the corps to which they will be attached. 
This subject has been presented to the consider- 
ation of the Secretary of War, who approves the 
object, and who, I am assured, will give me the 
necessary authority to recruit in the manner 
suggested, from within the enemy's lines and 
elsewhere in Louisiana. ... I will require 
between two hundred and two hundred and fifty 
men to accomplish my plan ; with this addition 
of men and the change of armament as pro- 
posed, I am prepared to say the Washington 
Artillery in the spring will equal in efficiency 
any troops of our own army or that of the 
enemy. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, 

"J.B.Walton, Colonel." 

General Longstreet endorsed upon this letter, 
as follows : 

"Head-quarters First Army Corps, 

"December z8//i, 1862. 
" There is no finer command in the service 
than the Washington Artillery, and I think that 
every effort should be made to recruit its ranks. 
I approve the suggestion of Colonel Walton 
and recommend the detail as soon as possible. 
"J. Longstreet, 
" Lieutenant-General Commanding." 

This proposition being approved by the gov- 
ernment, Colonel Walton and five officers pro- 
ceeded to Mobile, and having succeeded in 
their mission, returned in two months to their 
head-quarters. The spring campaign opened 
with the battle of Chancellorsville. The Wash- 
ington Artillery were stationed in their old 
position on Marge's Heights, supported by 
about fifteen hundred infantry, to hold in check 
twenty-two thousand Federal troops under Gen- 
eral Sedgwick. Colonel Walton protested against 
placing his guns in a line near three miles in 
length in front of the position, asserting that the 
loss of the guns was inevitable — they could not 
be served against the overwhelming odds of 
Sedgwick. General Early was determined, how- 
ever, and as a consequence, in spite of a des- 



perate and determined hand-to-hand fight with 
overpowering numbers, two guns with three 
officers and about thirty men were captured. 
Marge's Hill was afterwards retaken and the 
redoubts again occupied by the remainder of 
the Washington Artillery. General Humphreys, 
in his " Recollections of Fredericksburg," says: 
"The whole story of the 3d May, 1863, at 
Marge's Hill was fully told, though not amiably 
or piously expressed, by a noble son of Louisi- 
ana who gallantly stood by his gun on the hill 
until the last hope of holding it had vanished. 
Passing to the rear by some artillerists belong- 
ing to General Pendleton's train of ' Reserve 
Artillery,' with his face covered with sweat and 
blackened with powder, his heart saddened by 
defeat, he was jeered at and asked, ironically, 
' Where are your guns ? ' He replied with just 
irritation — ' Guns be damned : I reckon now the 
people of the Southern Confederacy are satisfied 
that Barksdale's brigade and the Washington 
Artillery can't whip the whole damned Yankee 
army.' " — In the latter end of June the battalion 
crossed the Potomac, and on July 2d arrived 
with Longstreet on the battle-field of Gettys- 
burg, and at daylight on the 3d were engaged 
in an artillery duel with the enemy's guns. 
About two hundred guns were in position facing 
the Federal entrenched position, all under the 
command of Colonel Walton, chief of artillery. 
Being sent for by General Longstreet, Colonel 
Walton attended the consultation of the general 
officers, and the plan of battle was determined 
upon. At a given signal to be arranged by 
Colonel Walton, all the guns on the Confeder- 
ate line were to open simultaneously on the 
enemy's batteries in front of their position. 
The signal, two guns in quick succession, by 
the Washington Artillery in the centre, were 
fired at 1.40 p. M., immediately upon receipt of 
the following order : 

" Head-quarters, On the Field, 
"July 3d, 1S63. 1.30 p. m. 
" Colonel Walton : Let the batteries open ; 
order great care and precision in firing. If the 
batteries at the Peach orchard cannot be used 



iS° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



against the point we intend attacking, let them 
open on the enemy on the Rocky Hill. 
"Most respectfully, 

"J. Longstreet, 
" Lieutenant-General Commanding." 

Then began one of the grandest cannonades 
ever heard in any battle, nearly five hundred 
guns being in action on both sides on all parts 
of the field at one time. The firing continued 
about thirty minutes, when the guns of the 
enemy scarcely returned shot for shot, and then 
all ceased firing. General Hancock said of this 
cannonade: " Their artillery (Confederate) fire 
was the most terrific cannonade I ever witnessed 
and the most prolonged. It was a most terrific 
and appalling cannonade — one possibly hardly 
ever paralleled." Pickett's Virginia brigade 
then advanced to the charge, being received by 
a tremendous fire of artillery and infantry, and 
losing heavily as he advances. He entered the 
enemy's works, but just at the moment of tri- 
umph the troops supporting him on the left 
staggered under a flank-fire and retreated in 
confusion. Pickett was forced to fall back, 
which he did without confusion or panic. The 
loss to the Federal artillery and to the infantry 
massed behind their works, by the Confederate 
guns, is reported to have been greater than in 
any engagement of the war. At one a. m. on 
the morning of the 4th July, Colonel Walton 
received an order from General Longstreet " to 
hold the artillery in readiness to resist an attack 
by daylight, and to remember that we have no 
shot to spare except for the enemy's infantry." 
At nine p. m. of that eventful day the troops 
were ordered to be withdrawn, and the Wash- 
ington Artillery were ordered to escort the 
train of wounded men to Williamsport, on the 
Potomac, in advance of the army. The rain was 
pouring down in torrents and the roads became 
almost impassable. On 6th July the army 
trains and wounded reached Williamsport and 
bivouacked, as the Potomac was too high to ford. 
A large force of Federal cavalry charged down 
upon the trains, but the Washington Artillery, 
assisted by the teamsters and quartermasters' 



men, drove them off with loss, and thus the 
trains of Lee's whole army were saved. On 
the 14th pontoons were completed and the army 
crossed the Potomac without loss. The winter 
of 1863-64 was passed by the Washington Ar- 
tillery at Petersburg, Va., and here our record 
of their brilliant services must end. In June, 
1864, Colonel Walton was assigned by the Sec- 
retary of War to duty as Inspector-General of 
Field Artillery of the Confederate States, and 
in execution of his duty visited the whole of the 
different commands throughout the Confederacy. 
On his presenting his report on his return, the 
officers in the War Department paid him the 
high compliment of saying that there never had 
been so exact and accurate a report made before. 
He was then appointed to the command of the 
artillery in the defence of Petersburg, and while 
in command there the appointment of Chief of 
Artillery in the First Corps, his old position, 
was made to a favorite of the administration, 
and feeling that his just promotion was denied 
him, he resigned his commission, July 18th, 
1864. He had been twice recommended by 
Generals Beauregard and Longstreet for promo- 
tion to the rank of Brigadier-General of Artil- 
lery, but his promotion had been as often 
refused for the reason that the President would 
appoint to the highest grade in the artillery arm 
only such as had the advantage of a "scientific 
military education," by which was meant a 
graduate of West Point. 

Immediately after his resignation he was sent 
for by the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Tren- 
holm) to undertake the delicate mission of 
negotiating, through a flag of truce, with the 
agents of the United States treasury for the 
purpose of transferring a large amount of cotton 
then at Augusta and Savannah to the Federal 
authorities, with the view of realizing upon it. 
Furnished with abundant means by the Con- 
federate treasury he proceeded to Augusta to 
conclude the necessary negotiations, and while 
in communication with the Federal authorities 
under a flag of truce, news of the surrender of 
General Lee was received, and in a few days 
afterwards a column of Federal troops took 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



possession of Augusta and of all the cotton 
that it had been proposed to convey across the 
line. 

After the surrender Colonel Walton returned 
to New Orleans, where he resumed business as a 
real-estate agent, to which occupation he has 
since devoted his attention exclusively. During 
the whole agitation of the question of secession 
Colonel Walton was strongly opposed to it, but 
when Louisiana withdrew from the Union, 
occupying as he did the position of commander 
of one of the finest military organizations in the 
Southern States, he considered it to be his duty 
to stand firmly by his State. He has always 
identified himself somewhat prominently with 
public affairs, and has taken part in every move- 
ment tending to the advancement and pros- 
perity of his section and the best interests of his 
fellow-citizens. 

Colonel Walton's connection with the Wash- 
ington Artillery terminated .on his resignation 
from the Confederate service in June, 1864, 
but he was always held in grateful remembrance 
by his old comrades-in-arms, and when, in 1S77, 
the battalion was reorganized, he was elected its 
Colonel. After the completion of all the details 
of reorganization, however, he retired, feeling 
that he was unable to give that attention that 
the duties of the position demanded, and he 
was then elected its honorary Colonel for 
life. 

On the 9th November, 1879, ne was unani- 
mously elected President of the Association of the 
Veterans of the Mexican War, of which organi- 
zation he had formerly been the Vice-President. 
At present it consists of one hundred and twenty 
members, which is all that are left of the seven 
hundred and sixty gallant fellows that followed 
the veteran Colonel to Mexico. 

He holds an -influential position among the 
brethren of the mystic tie, and has attained to 
the thirty-second degree in Masonry. He was 
married, February, 1836, to Amelia, daughter 
of Robert Slack, a wealthy merchant of New 
Orleans, and has seven children living, two of 
his sons being engaged in mercantile pursuits in 
the Crescent City. 




HON. W. D. PORTER. 

■. South Carolina. 

Q\fffilLU.AM. DENISON PORTER was born 
in Charleston, S. C, on the 24th of 
November, 1810. He is the son of 
William L. Porter, a merchant of that 
city. The family is of English descent, 
but came to South Carolina originally from Mas- 
sachusetts. One of the family was that "Asahel 
Porter of Woburn," whose name is inscribed on 
the Lexington Monument, and who was one of 
the first eight martyrs in the first conflict for 
American independence. 

The early education of Mr. Porter was ac- 
quired in Charleston at the classical academy 
of Christopher Cotes, a gentleman of high repu- 
tation in his day, from whose school he went to 
the College of Charleston, whence he graduated 
in 1829, with the second honor of his class. 
Among his classmates at school and college was 
Major Ashby, of the United States army, who 
afterwards distinguished himself in the Seminole 
war. After graduation, he taught school and 
studied law simultaneously, the latter under the 
distinguished jurist, J. L. Pettigru, from whose 
office he was admitted to the Bar in 1833, while 
still engaged in tuition. He acquired a success- 
ful practice, and entered public life in 1840, 
being then elected a member of the House of 
Representatives for Charleston, which position 
he held till 1848, when he was elected to the 
Senate. In 1844 he became Attorney to the 
Municipal Corporation of Charleston, retaining 
that office for nearly a quarter of a century, and 
only resigning it in 1868, upon the election of a 
Republican administration. His politics have 
always been of the States Rights school of the 
Democracy, holding the right of secession, but 
maintaining that it was a right to be exercised 
only in case of extreme necessity. In 1850 he 
opposed on grounds of expediency the action of 
the party which urged the separate secession of 
the State at that time, and at the election for a 
Southern Congress (which was the proposed 
mode of determining the action of the State), he 
defeated his opponent by a large majority. In 



iS 2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



1853 he was one of the Presidential electors for 
Franklin Pierce. In 1857 he was elected Presi- 
dent of the State Senate, and retained that office 
until the United States military commander, 
General Sickles, dissolved the General Assembly 
in 1 868, and officially decapitated its officers. 
Mr. Porter served his native State, in the House 
and Senate continuously, for twenty-six years, 
and has the proud satisfaction of never having 
been defeated in a popular election. During 
his legislative career, among the subjects which 
most engaged his attention and called forth his 
efforts, were the abolition of imprisonment for 
debt, the building of the Blue Ridge Railroad as 
the means of opening direct communication be- 
tween the seaboard and the West, and making 
Charleston the terminus of a great line of travel 
and transportation, the defence of the Bank of 
the State as the best fiscal agent for the State, and 
the election of electors for President and Vice- 
President by the people, instead of retaining it 
in the hands of the Legislature. In matters of 
national politics, having implicit faith in the 
sagacity, patriotism and prophetic forecast of 
Mr. John C. Calhoun, he willingly acquiesced in 
the wonderful and life-long ascendency which 
that great genius of the Southern statesman 
maintained over the popular mind of South 
Carolina. In 1869, at the request of the "Asso- 
ciation of 1860/' of which he was President, 
he wrote a political pamphlet on the doctrine of 
" Coercion," in reply to a speech by Stephen A. 
Douglas, at Norfolk, Va., which was printed in 
large numbers, and had a very extensive circula- 
tion throughout the Southern States. It asserted 
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the State and 
the right of secession ; contended that the 
avowed opinions of Mr. Lincoln would inevita- 
bly inaugurate a war of sections, and urged 
strenuously that, in the event of his election, a 
due regard for her honor, peace, safety and ex- 
istence, made it the imperative duty of South 
Carolina to withdraw from the Federal Union 
and take her destinies into her own hands. The 
election of Mr. Lincoln upon a purely geographic 
line between the North and the South, deter- 
mined the action of South Carolina, and united 



her public men in support of that action almost 
without exception. 

Mr. Porter being President of the Senate, was 
not a member of the Secession Convention, for 
the two bodies were to sit and did sit simulta- 
neously, but in a speech at Institute Hall, on the 
adjournment of the Legislature, he urged in 
earnest and impassioned language that the ac- 
tion of the Convention should be prompt and 
decisive, expressing the hope that its action, 
like that of the Legislature, would be entirely 
unanimous, which it proved to be. If ever an 
honest, sincere, intense and universal conviction 
pervaded the minds of a people, that their honor, 
their safety, nay, their existence, political and 
social, depended upon their action, such a con- 
viction at that time possessed and guided the 
minds of the people of South Carolina. 

The results of the war prostrated the fortunes 
of Mr. Porter, but he went to work cheerfully to 
rebuild his shattered hearth-stones and household 
gods. Immediately after the war and before the 
enactment of the reconstruction measures of 
Congress, South Carolina, under the Provisional 
Government, adopted a new Constitution, which 
gave for the first time the election of Governor 
and Lieutenant-Governor to the people, and at 
the first election Mr. Porter was elected Lieuten- 
ant-Governor on the ticket with the Hon. 
James L. Orr as Governor, thus making him 
ex officio President of the State Senate. In 1S66 
he made, before Judge Bryan, United States 
District Judge, on behalf of himself and his 
brethren of the Bar, an elaborate argument 
against the constitutionality of the Lawyers' Test 
Oath as prescribed by Congress after the war. 
The following brief appeal to the Judge at the 
close of the argument will give some idea of his 
style : 

" If the Constitution have survived the war, 
we are entitled to the benefit of its protection ; 
if it have not, of course we go down in the 
common calamity — a calamity which exceeds 
all power of comprehension. The judges are 
the ministers of the law and the appointed 
guardians of constitutional right. Our hope is 
in them. The trust and the power is with them 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



J 5; 



to defend the rights of a brave but stricken 
people. It is better and holier to lift up the 
fallen and heal the stricken than to hold up the 
hands of prosperous power. But it is a better 
and holier thing still to uphold what one be- 
lieves to be the right, careless of consequences, 
and to leave the vindication of his motives and 
fame with a brave and hopeful trust to the wise 
and good that shall come after him. The 
names around which have gathered in largest 
measure the love and gratitude of succeeding 
generations are those that have maintained the 
cause of the weak against the strong, that have 
refused to cower beneath the frowns of power, 
and that have looked for their reward beyond 
the transitory applause of the present, to the 
well-considered and unchanging praise of the 
men and the centuries that are in the womb of 
the future. Such names have a freshness that 
will not die." 

In 1872 he was President of the South Caro- 
lina Democratic Convention, and Chairman of 
the delegation to the National Democratic Con- 
vention held at Baltimore, which nominated 
Horace Greeley for President of the United 
States. Prior to the convention he published a 
letter stating the grounds on which he recom- 
mended the Democratic party to forbear party 
nominations and sustain Horace Greeley on 
grounds of public policy. 

In April, 1873, ex-Governor Seymour, of New 
York, and William Cullen Bryant, the poet, vis- 
ited Charleston together. They were elegantly 
entertained by Colonel Richard Lathers at his 
beautiful and spacious mansion on South Bay. 
In the course of the entertainment Governor 
Seymour and Mr. Bryant made speeches, the 
pervading tone of which was justice and kindli- 
ness towards the South. Among others Mr. 
Porter was called upon to respond to a senti- 
ment; the following extracts will convey an 
idea of the general character and spirit of his 
speeches. Speaking of the secession movement, 
he said : 

"A whole people do not enter upon a great 
movement like that, with almost entire unan- 
imity, and sustain it for years with unparalleled 



sacrifice of blood and treasure, without the sin- 
cerest convictions. We know that we were 
honest, and that we did our very best to sustain 
our position. We know, too, that we utterly 
failed to do so, and men that have honestly and 
bravely fought out their fight, whatever the re- 
sult of the combat, can afford to look each other 
straight in the face and strike hands and be 
friends again. In such cases men generally be- 
come faster friends than they were before. They 
have tested each other's mettle and learned to 
respect it. There is no disparagement, no sense 
of humiliation on either side. Where all is lost 
on one side but honor, that very honor of the 
defeated and the magnanimity of -the victor fur- 
nish a ground on which both may stand on a 
footing of equality. If we did not feel and 
assert our sincerity and manhood, we should 
not be fit to be accounted American citizens. 
We lost our cause, but we did not lose our 
honor. If we are jealous of this, let a generous 
sentiment appreciate and respect the feeling. 
We stand in view of Fort Sumter. What a tide 
of recollections does that name summon up ! It 
is not my purpose to rehearse them now. Fort 
Sumter is a stubborn fact ; it stands where it 
stood ; it is and will be memorable in history. 
But it may be used for other purposes than those 
of war. Within sight and hearing of the spot 
on which Ave stand the first shot of the civil war 
was fired. Now that the war is at an end, would 
to God that from this same spot and on this 
night there may go forth voices that will calm 
the troubled waters and charm down from above 
the blessed spirit of peace to brood over them. 
Then will Sumter, which first woke the echoes 
of war and clothed herself with thunder, be girt 
around with blessings and stand forth to all the 
world as the type and emblem of peace in a once 
distracted but now reunited land." 

This speech seemed to represent exactly the 
average public sentiment. It was universally 
acceptable because it set forth mutual respect as 
the only basis of genuine reconciliation. The 
Daily News, the leading Democratic paper of 
the metropolis, called it "The New Evangel," 
likened its effect to that of the old ballad of 



iS4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



"Chevy Chase," and added that "a few gen- 
erous words spoken by a Charleston gentleman, 
standing face to face with a poet and a states- 
man, fit representatives of the right and senti- 
ment, the native intelligence and ripe culture 
of our common country, stirred the heart, quick- 
ened the pulse, and who shall doubt that they 
touched to the quick both Northern men and 
Southern men who heard them?" 

In the summer of 1873 the people of the upper 
portion of the State were greatly disturbed by 
arrests and prosecutions for alleged participa- 
tions in what was called the Ku-Klux raids; 
certain convictions were obtained in the United 
States Court at Columbia, and persons believed 
to have been entirely innocent were sent off to 
the penitentiary in New York. Upon affidavits 
of irresponsible persons and warrants served by 
United States dragoons at midnight, several 
hundred arrests had been made and as many 
hundred prosecutions commenced. Without 
warning, young men were seized and hurried to 
jails in Columbia and Charleston. A reign of 
terror prevailed, and the region round about 
was being rapidly depopulated. Major Hart, a 
most gallant officer of the Confederate army, 
who had lost a limb in the service, came down 
from York in June, 1873, an d, after stating the 
condition of things, appealed, on behalf of his 
constituents, to Mr. Porter to join General Ker- 
shaw, of Camden, and Colonel R. M. Sims, of 
York, and proceed on a mission to Washington 
to procure, if possible, some relief in the matter 
of these ruinous and oppressive proceedings. 
The three gentlemen named did proceed on 
their mission, with Mr. Porter as their Chairman 
by seniority. They laid their case first before 
the Attorney-General, Mr. Williams, and then, 
by his advice, before General Grant, at Long 
Branch; their reception was kindly and their 
mission most successful. After a full and free 
conference, and upon their assurance that in 
their opinion the public peace and order would 
no longer be disturbed, General Grant sent by 
telegraph to the Attorney-General an order by 
which hundreds of prosecutions were suspended, 
never to be renewed, and a number of victims 



were released from imprisonment in a remote 
place of incarceration. Upon no single act of 
public service rendered by him does Mr. Porter 
look back with greater pleasure or pride than 
upon this. During this time, and indeed since 
the reconstruction acts took the shape of consti- 
tutional amendments, Mr. Porter has lent his 
whole influence and most earnest efforts to calm 
down the excitement of the people, to impress 
upon them the duty of loyalty to the Federal 
Government and to promote an unification of 
the late hostile sections of the Union upon the 
basis of mutual respect and kindliness. 

The frauds and oppressions perpetrated since 
the war, upon the people of South Carolina, 
which have a world-wide notoriety, caused the 
assembling of the "South Carolina Tax-payers' 
Convention" in 1873, io consult and devise 
measures for a relief of grievances. This body 
brought together the representative men of South 
Carolina, and it became a reunion of the best 
spirits who had survived the conflict, Mr. Porter 
being elected President without opposition. 
The convention held two sessions, at the last 
of which it was resolved to send a delegation of 
twenty members to Washington for the purpose 
of laying their grievances before President Grant 
and the Houses of Congress. Accordingly in 
March, 1874, the delegation, of which Mr. 
Porter was Chairman, composed of such men as 
ex-Governor Manning, ex-Governor Bonham, 
General J. B. Kershaw, General M. C. Butler, 
General B. H. Rutledge, Henry Gourdin, and 
many others equally distinguished, visited Wash- 
ington. They were accompanied by a delega- 
tion from the Charleston Chamber of Commerce. 
Mr. Porter, in his address to the President, de- 
scribes the position of the people of the State at 
the close of the war: 

" The single act of Emancipation struck out 
of existence $125,000,000 of their property 
value. Their moneys, their bills, their securi- 
ties, State and Federal, perished on their hands. 
They had lands, without labor, or money to hire 
labor; they had houses or cabins, but without 
provisions to satisfy the hungry cravings of men, 
women and children. If ever there was a people 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



!55 



upon whom the hand of taxation should have 
been laid lightly and gently, it was the people of 
South Carolina at the end of the war. . . . The 
doubling of our citizenship by the reconstruc- 
tion measures has divided the State into two 
classes or strata, the one property-holding and 
tax-paying, the other non-property-holding and 
non-tax-paying, and in the latter class resides 
the absolute political power of the State, in- 
cluding the great sovereign power of taxation ; 
and this class is banded together as a fixed politi- 
cal majority, which refuses any substantial repre- 
sentation to the tax-paying minority.- The prac- 
tical result, then, is this : that the people who 
levy the taxes do not pay the taxes ; those who 
pay the taxes have no voice in fixing the amount 
of them ; and the taxes so raised are expended 
not by those who pay them, but by those who 
feel really no part of the burden of them. We 
doubt whether such a condition of things has 
ever before existed in any government which 
called itself a free representative government. 
Those who do not pay the taxes care not how 
heavily they lay them on; and the more heavily 
they lay them on, the more money they have to 
expend. In point of fact, there is no check, no 
limitation, no responsibility, such as exists where 
the representatives feel that they owe an ac- 
countability to a tax-paying constituency. Our 
taxable values before the war were near 
$500, 000,000 ; they are now reduced to 
$150,000,000 or £160,000,000. Upon that 
£500,000,000, before the war, was raised for 
the ordinary current expenses of the govern- 
ment the sum of about £400,000 ; but upon the 
reduced values of £150,000,000 there is now 
raised the annual sum of over £2,000,000. Con- 
sidering the loss and depreciation of property, 
the reduced ability of the people to pay, and 
the false and exaggerated assessments made, 
the proportion between the tax now raised and 
that raised before the war would be fifteen or 
twenty to one. It is no wonder, then, that in 
one year 268,000 acres of land were forfeited to 
the State for non-payment of taxes, and that 
in the single county of Beaufort some 800 out 
of the 2500 farms sold by the United States to 



the colored people have also been forfeited for 
the same cause. So, too, the funded debt of the 
State has been increased from about £6,000,000 
to an admitted figure of £16,000,000, with an 
undefined margin of floating debt and unac- 
knowledged bonds. To state the case in a few 
words, it may be said that our present rulers 
have already utterly destroyed the credit of the 
State by the excessive issue of bonds, partly 
legitimate and partly fraudulent, and are now 
engaged in devouring the substance of the people 
by the grinding exactions of taxation." 

The delegation, meeting with but little en- 
couragement from the President, drew up a 
memorial to Congress setting forth their griev- 
ances and asking for an investigation. The 
committee, appointed by the Speaker of the 
House of Representatives, made, through Mr. 
Tremaine, of New York, a report adverse to any 
action being taken, but a minority report was 
presented, through Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, 
setting forth the case of the memorialists in a 
very favorable light. Immediately upon the 
action of the Tax-payers' Convention becoming 
known to the Republican office-holders in 
Columbia, a counter-delegation was organized 
and proceeded to Washington, composed of 
Cardoza, Wittemore and other notorious mem- 
bers of that party, to oppose its objects, and it 
was subsequently ascertained that the expenses 
of this body were supplied out of the funds of 
the State. 

In June, 1875, tne Washington Light In- 
fantry, a gallant volunteer corps of Charleston, 
of which Mr. Porter had formerly been com- 
mander, proposed to go to Boston and join in 
the celebration of the Centennial Anniversary 
of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Governor Cham- 
berlain hearing of their purpose, caused a beau- 
tiful flag to be prepared, emblematical of South 
Carolina, and by letter requested Mr. Porter to 
present it to the regiment on his behalf. In his 
letter of acceptance Mr. Porter wrote as follows : 

" Permit me to express my cordial concur- 
rence in the sentiments so happily expressed by 
you. It seems to me as if there were something 
providential in the occurrence of these centen- 



i5« 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



nial celebrations so soon after our recent es- 
trangement. If there be a place, a common 
ground, on which the people of the North and 
the South can meet and renew their pledges of 
fidelity to liberty and Union without disparage- 
ment or loss of self-respect on either side, it is 
upon the grounds, the holy places, where their 
forefathers laid the foundations of independence 
and cemented them with their precious blood. 
The memories there kindled will, by a sort of 
moral telegraphy, flash from the first altars of 
liberty raised in the North to the first altars 
raised in the South, and thence diffuse them- 
selves, as electric fires, through the forty mil- 
lions of hearts that throb in sympathizing patriot- 
ism over this broad continent. This is the way 
of all ways to ' bridge over the chasm.' In fur- 
therance of this blessed work, let me express the 
hope that on the 28th of June, 1876, when South 
Carolina in her turn celebrates the victory of 
Fort Moultrie, the bright morning star and har- 
binger of independence, Massachusetts and all 
the old thirteen will be there to take their place 
in the picture." 

The mission of the Washington Light Infantry 
was a grand success. Their reception was most 
hearty, and the banner they bore, the revolu- 
tionary cavalry flag of William Washington, the 
only relic of the kind perhaps to be found in the 
possession of any volunteer company, was every- 
where hailed with enthusiasm, and gave addi- 
tional eclat to the occasion. There can be no 
doubt that this patriotic pilgrimage of a repre- 
sentative military corps of South Carolina to 
Massachusetts on a day, to a spot, and for a pur- 
pose, so dear to the last named State, did much 
to rekindle the fires of their old friendship, 
when in the days of the war for independence 
they stood by each other so bravely and steadily. 
The hope expressed in Mr. Porter's letter that 
Massachusetts would return the compliment on 
Carolina's day was realized, for on the 28th 
June, 1876, the centennial anniversary of the 
battle of Fort Moultrie, the Boston Light Infan- 
try, a splendid corps, commonly known at home 
as "the Tigers," came down in full company, 
and joined in celebrating the event which has 



given lustre to the names of Jasper, Marion and 
Moultrie, and which their own historian, Ban- 
croft, has characterized as the " harbinger of in- 
dependence." After this celebration the Wash- 
ington Light Infantry and the Boston Light In- 
fantry proceeded together to Philadelphia and 
took part as portion of the Centennial Legion of 
the old Thirteen in the splendid procession, 
pageant and festival which has rendered the 
Fourth of July, 1876, memorable in our annals, 
and which drew more closely together the sec- 
tions of the country so lately engaged in dire and 
fratricidal warfare. In the summer and fall of 
1876 South Carolina was convulsed with the 
great Democratic struggle to redeem her from 
Radical misrule. The State was filled with 
fraud, corruption and violence. The burden 
was intolerable ; it was a shame and a scorn to 
all sense of freedom and manhood. The people 
determined to make an effort to retrieve them- 
selves that should be worthy of their lineage and 
history. One heart, one mind and one purpose 
possessed and impelled them. They felt and 
knew that if they were to be free, themselves 
must strike the blow, and they resolved to strike 
it. Every agency was put in motion ; for once 
there was- no division, each man was put to 
such work as he could best do. Mr. Porter, 
suffering at that time from a bronchial affection 
which impaired his voice, was forbidden by his 
physician to speak in large public assemblages, 
but his pen was free and active. There was not 
much need or room for the operation of this 
agency within the limits of the State, but public 
opinion abroad was to be enlightened and won 
over. At the North and West there was a woful 
ignorance of the condition of things in the 
"prostrate State," a condition of things which 
has been well likened to a social pyramid set up 
on its apex and held in position by fraud and 
force — by corruption and bayonets. It should 
be remembered, too, that the white rifle clubs 
were disbanded by order froirrWashington, while 
the "National Guard," composed of colored 
men, were allowed to drill and parade with 
arms. But the spirit of the clubs was not to be 
quenched, Some idea of it may be formed from 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



157 



the motto which the Washington Light Infantry- 
put over the door of their armory, " Disbanded, 
but solid for Hampton." The columns of the 
city press swarmed with articles intended to en- 
lighten the popular mind at the North, especially 
the minds of liberal Republicans, and to con- 
ciliate their sympathy and support. As the day 
of election approached, the Democratic Execu- 
tive Committee in Charleston concluded to put 
forth an address and appeal to the people of the 
United States, and to give it all possible sanc- 
tion and solemnity, they contemplated its signa- 
ture by the clergy and by none others. Mr. 
Porter, at the request of the committee, pre- 
pared an address " To the people of the United 
States," from which we extract the following: 

" For ten long weary years the white people 
of South Carolina have endured a condition of 
things which any Northern State would have 
been tempted to throw off, in two years, at the 
point of the bayonet, if it could have been done 
in no other way. They bore and forbore, in the 
hope that some returning sense of justice or 
happy stroke of fortune would bring relief. But 
no such sense of justice or happy stroke came to 
their relief, and hope sickened and died away in 
their hearts. At last they determined, as by a 
common impulse, and a natural and uncontrolla- 
ble instinct of freedom, to make one supreme ef- 
fort for their redemption; but to make it under 
and within the law. 

"Those who hold authority here, having 
through party affiliation access to the highest 
organs of political power in the country, and to 
the equally powerful organs of the partisan news- 
paper press, have subjected us to the vilest mis- 
representations, and the most cruel slanders. 
Some of these we desire to correct. 

"It is not tj-ue that the white people of South 
Carolina are disloyal or disaffected towards the 
United States Government. On the contrary, 
they are loyal and well-affected towards it. 
They obey it at home, and would defend it 
promptly from foreign aggression 

"It is not t7-ue that South Carolina, or any of 
its counties, are in a state of insurrection or do- 
mestic violence against the government of the 



State ; or that law and process "cannot be duly 
enforced within her territorial limits; or that 
there is any lawful cause or occasion whatever 
for the Federal Government to interfere for the 
protection of the State Government against the 
violence of her citizens. 

"It is not true that the white people of the 
State are hostile to the colored people, or have 
any design or disposition to abridge or infringe 
their political or civil rights. On the contrary, 
in their conventions, and in the speeches of their 
candidates, for six years or more, the most pub- 
lic and solemn pledges have been given that all 
the rights of the colored people shall be respected 
and protected. The colored people know that 
these pledges, unlike the promises of the false 
friends who are leading them, will be faithfully- 
kept. 

"It is not t7-ue that the few ' rifle clubs ' in the 
State are ' combinations of men against the law,' 
or that they are engaged in ' murdering some 
peaceable citizens and intimidating others,' or 
that ' they cannot be controlled or suppressed by 
the ordinary course _of justice.' The President 
has been deceived. These clubs existed with the 
knowledge and recognition of the Governor. 
Not one of them ever acted in defiance of law, 
or against the government or constituted authori- 
ties. The hostility to them of Governor Cham- 
berlain and his coadjutors is recent ; it is politi- 
cal, and is designed to affect the coming 
election. 

"His not true that in the recent race collisions 
the white people have been the aggressors. 
Their forbearance, as in the Charleston riot, the 
unprovoked Cainhoy massacre, and the still 
more recent assassination of a white citizen in 
Edgefield, has been wonderful. The truth is, 
that the leaders of the colored people, seeing and 
fearing that the day of their power was drawing 
to a close, have excited their ignorant dupes, 
supplied them with arms, aroused their fears for 
the loss of their liberty, and thus driven them 
headlong to deeds of violence. 

"We may also affirm some things which are 
true : 

"It is true that there is in the State a most ac- 



i58 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



tive, earnest and excited canvass to overthrow 
corrupt rule, and re-establish honest government. 
This is a legitimate and lawful object which 
should command the sympathy and support of 
every lover of his country. It is not treason to 
defeat Chamberlain, nor is it insurrection or do- 
mestic violence to elect Hampton. 

"It is true that while the white rifle clubs are 
ordered by the Governor and the President to 
disband and disperse, the colored militia of the 
State are allowed to remain in organization and 
in the possession of their arms, and to attend 
political meetings in military order with rifles 
and bayonets fixed. The object of this discrimi- 
nation is as obvious as is the comparatively de- 
fenceless condition in which it places the white 
population. We simply ask, What would the 
people of New York or Massachusetts think or 
do upon a like application of the bayonet policy 
to them under like circumstances? " 

This document was signed by the Roman 
Catholic Bishop, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop 
and a large number of clergymen of all denomi- 
nations. It was designed to present a concise, 
but comprehensive statement .of the grievances 
of the people of South Carolina,' a refutation of 
the calumnies charged against them, and an 
earnest appeal to the country for sympathy and 
aid in preventing the education, culture and 
property of the State from being utterly over- 
whelmed by a gigantic mass of ignorance, vice 
and corruption. The brevity of the paper and 
the weight of the names attached to it, caused it 
to be extensively copied and read throughout the 
North and West. In the election of Wade 
Hampton and his ticket of State officers, the 
most ardent wishes and hopes of the people of 
South Carolina were realized, and the honest, 
wise, liberal and patriotic administration which 
was then inaugurated, has commanded the ap- 
plause of all parties. Mr. Porter having signi- 
fied a desire to retire from the more active 
contentions of the bar, accepted from Governor 
Hampton, in 1S78, the appointment to an office 
established at the session of the Legislature in 
that year, viz : Master in Equity and Common 
Pleas. He has devoted more attention to litera- 



ture than most lawyers of his day, and numerous 
pamphlets and addresses before literary societies 
bear witness to the fertility of his pen. 

He was married in 1839 to Emma, daughter 
of Captain Nathaniel Haraden, of the United 
States Navy, who commanded a gunboat at 
Tripoli. 

HON. J. E. BROWN. 
Georgia. 



fej3J|OSEPH EMERSON BROWN was born 
«i4| . in Pickens District, S. C, April 15th, 
C^jJJ 1821. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish 
ki£p Presbyterians, and espoused the cause 
^ of William and Mary against James the 
Second of England ; they lived near London- 
derry, Ireland, and shared the terrible sufferings 
of the protracted siege of that city. They emi- 
grated to America in 1745 and settled in Vir- 
ginia, afterwards removing to South Carolina. 
Joseph Brown, the grandfather of the subject of 
this sketch, was an ardent Whig in the Revolu- 
tion, and took an active part in the battles of 
King's Mountain, Camden and other important 
engagements; his son, Mackey Brown, when a 
young man, removed to Middle Tennessee, 
where he joined the brigade of General Carroll, 
organized for the war of 181 2, and participated 
under General Jackson in all the battles around 
New Orleans, including the memorable battle of 
the 8th January, 1815, in which General Paken- 
ham, the gallant commander of the British 
forces, was killed. His maternal ancestors were 
Virginians and subsequently became citizens of 
Tennessee ; his mother, Sally Rice, who was of 
English descent, soon after her marriage removed 
with her husband to Pickens District, S. C, 
where, surrounded by the peaceful comfort of 
agricultural life, they reared eleven children. 

Joseph E. Brown from his earliest years was 
accustomed to the practical duties of farm-work, 
attending to the stock and laboring in the field 
from eight years of age until he was nineteen. 
He attended the country school in the intervals 
of his other occupations, and his father having 
in the meantime removed from South Carolina 





^y^O £(&Pf7tri^ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



iS9 



into Union county, northeast Georgia, he entered 
Calhoun Academy, in Anderson District, S. C, 
in the fall of 1840. His father having so large 
a family to bring up had some difficulty in pro- 
viding for their education, and Joseph took with 
him a yoke of steers to pay his board for the 
first eight months, while he was obliged to run 
in debt for his tuition. In the fall of 1841 he 
returned to Georgia, and taught school for three 
months in order to provide funds for his past 
and part of his future education. Returning to 
Calhoun Academy in January, 1842, he pursued 
his studies under Mr. Wesly Leverett, a distin- 
guished teacher of that day, and in the follow- 
ing year removed with Mr. Leverett to an 
academy he established near Anderson Court- 
House. Having made rapid progress during 
these three years he was prepared to enter an 
advanced class in college, but as his means were 
too limited at that period, he decided to go to 
Canton, Ga., where he took charge of the 
academy in that town, January 1st, 1844, com- 
mencing with six scholars, which in a few weeks 
increased to sixty. His school became very 
popular and prosperous, and at the end of the 
year he was enabled to return to South Carolina 
and pay all the expenses connected with his 
early tuition. During his stay in Canton he 
had \ read law without an instructor at night and 
in all spare hours, and continued his studies 
during the year 1845, teaching at the same time 
the children of his friend, Dr. John W. Lewis, with 
whom he lived. In August, 1845, after a search- 
ing examination in open court, he was admitted 
to the Bar, being highly complimented by the 
presiding judge for his proficiency, and in that 
term of the court made his maiden speech. In 
October, 1845, with the assistance of his staunch 
friend, Dr. Lewis, he entered the Law-School at 
Yale College, and soon found his reward - for the 
previous close application to his legal studies 
as he was able to take all the lessons of the 
three classes and yet find time to attend many 
of the lectures of Professor Silliman on Chemis- 
try and Geology ; Dr. Taylor on Mental Philoso 
phy ; Dr. Knight on Anatomy, and others. He 
graduated in the law-school at the commence- 



ment in 1846, but being anxious to attend the 
fall courts of his home circuit he was permitted 
to stand his examination and leave in June, his 
diploma being sent after him. Returning to 
Georgia he settled in Canton, and was soon 
engaged in a laborious but lucrative practice. 
In 1849 ne was nominated by the Democratic 
Convention as a candidate for Senator in the 
State Legislature from the Forty-first Senatorial 
District. It was the custom in those days for 
candidates to spend considerable sums in treat- 
ing at the different gatherings of their audiences, 
but Mr. Brown, being a member of the Sons of 
Temperance, resolutely refused to do this, either 
directly or indirectly, and though this was used 
against him by his opponent, Colonel John M. 
Edge and his friends, the result was his election 
by a considerable majority. He took an active 
part in the Senate during the stormy session of 
1849 anc * 1850, and in 1852 was elected on the 
Democratic Presidential ticket for Pierce and 
King. He continued the practice of his profes- 
sion actively till the fall of 1855, when he 
became a candidate for Judge of the Superior 
Courts of the Blue Ridge Circuit, and was 
elected over his popular opponent, Hon. David 
Irwin, then on the Bench, by over three thou- 
sand majority. While on the Bench he intro- 
duced many needed reforms in the conduct of 
public business, and his administration of the 
law met with much public favor, very few of his 
decisions being reversed by the Supreme Court. 
In June, 1857, the Democratic Convention met 
at Milledgeville to nominate a candidate for 
Governor of the State: the Hons. John H. 
Lumpkin, H. G. Lamar and James Gardner 
were prominent candidates, but after an ex- 
citing struggle a committee was appointed, who 
unanimously presented the name of Judge 
Brown, and he was nominated by acclamation. 
Judge Brown, who was always prepared at any 
moment to set a good example to his hands and 
show them that he was practically acquainted 
with all the details of farm labor, happened on 
this afternoon to be on his plantation on his 
customary visit of supervision, when noticing 
that some of the binders were getting somewhat 



i6o 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



behind the reapers he "took a hand " himself, 
and was so engaged when the momentous ques- 
tion of the nomination for Governor was being 
decided at Milledgeville, totally unconscious of 
the honor in store for him. Hon. B. H. Hill 
received the nomination of the American or 
"Know Nothing" party, and Judge Brown 
having resigned his judgeship, a thorough can- 
vass of the State ensued, ending in the election 
of Judge Brown by over ten thousand majority. 
After the election, but before Governor Brown 
was inaugurated, the banks generally suspended 
payment ; a law of the State required the Gov- 
ernor in such case to order proceedings in the 
courts for the forfeiture of their charters, and 
in his inaugural address Governor Brown con- 
demned the suspension as unnecessary, and 
announced his intention to order proceedings 
promptly for the forfeiture of their charters. 
This created great excitement, and lobbyists 
and agents of the moneyed corporations be- 
sieged the General Assembly and did all in 
their power to excite popular feeling against the 
Governor, on the ground that the enforcement 
of the law would cause great pressure in finan- 
cial matters and create much public distress. 
The Legislature shared the alarm and passed a 
bill relieving the banks from the penalties of the 
law and legalizing the suspension ; every influ- 
ence was brought to bear on the Governor to 
induce him to sign the bill, but in spite of im- 
portunities and threats he returned the bill with 
an able message, setting forth in forcible and 
vigorous language his objections to the measure. 
Never perhaps has there been a period of such 
intense excitement at the capital of the State. 
Many members who shared the Governor's views 
were forced to yield to the pressure brought 
upon them by the corporate power and voted 
to overrule the veto, and when the bill was 
passed over the veto the rejoicing among the 
parties interested culminated in a grand enter- 
tainment at the Milledgeville Hotel, where the 
Governor, who was not invited, was referred to 
in terms by no means complimentary, and it 
was determined by the representatives of the 
moneyed corporations of the State then present, 



that vigorous efforts should be made to confine 
his occupancy of the gubernatorial chair to one 
term. The Western and Atlantic Railroad, the 
property of the State, was then managed by 
officers appointed by the Governor, who was 
held responsible for its success, and hitherto it 
had paid very little into the treasury. Much 
discontent was expressed at its want of success, 
and the Governor, after a thorough examination 
into its affairs, decided to make a thorough 
change in all the prominent officials. He ap- 
pointed Dr. John W. Lewis, a gentleman of 
excellent practical ability and undoubted integ- 
rity, superintendent, and selected practical men, 
without regard to influence, for all the important 
offices. Those who were dismissed, although 
of the same political party, served to swell the 
already powerful party who were inimical to the 
Governor's chance of future election. The 
railroad had been managed in the interests of 
politicians, and the withdrawal of the free passes 
by the Governor created much dissatisfaction 
among those who rode free. The Governor, 
however, disregarded all opposition and pursued 
his course with untiring energy and unyielding 
will, and, by economical management of the 
railroad on a strictly business basis, brought it 
into good condition and enabled it to pay 
$200,000 into the State Treasury at the end of 
the first year, and $300,000 per annum before 
the breaking out of the war. As his term of 
office drew to a close the opponents of Governor 
Brown were very active, but met with little sym- 
pathy from the great mass of the people. 

The Democratic Convention of 1S59 nomi- 
nated him for re-election almost unanimously, 
while the American party chose Hon. Warren 
Akin as their candidate, who actively canvassed 
the State. Governor Brown refused to make a 
single speech during the canvass, being willing 
that the people should judge him by his acts, * 
and was triumphantly re-elected by nearly 
twenty-two thousand majority, the largest that 
any candidate for the office had ever received 
before. During his second term the controversy 
between the North and South, which had so 
long agitated the country, was brought to a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



161 



crisis by the election of Abraham Lincoln to 
the Presidency by a sectional party vote. Gov- 
ernor Brown, who was born in the vicinity of 
John C. Calhoun's estate, had been brought up 
in the political school of that great statesman, 
and conscientiously believed in the doctrine of 
State sovereignty and that the perpetuation of 
slavery was necessary to the future prosperity 
of the South. He was satisfied that Mr. Lin- 
coln's triumph upon a sectional issue imperilled 
both, and believed that the country could never 
rest till the question was brought to a practical 
test and decided. He therefore espoused the 
cause of secession as the only practical remedy, 
and used his utmost endeavors to carry the 
State for that measure. In 1861 the State of 
Georgia had property valued at $672,732,901, 
and 101,505 citizens entitled to vote. She sent 
over 120,000 soldiers into the field during the 
civil war, 20,000 more than her whole voting 
population. Her property was valued in 186S, 
the first year that official statistics were gathered 
after the war, at $191,235,520, or $481,497,381 
less than in 1861, showing the loss of between 
two-thirds and three-fourths of her whole prop- 
erty by the war. These are striking statistics, 
and show how sturdily this powerful Southern 
State adhered to the Confederate cause, and to 
what extent she devoted her men and means to 
the cause she had espoused. But, while sending 
the flower of her manhood and pouring out her 
resources without stint, she held an exceptional 
attitude in firmly antagonizing every measure 
of the Confederate government that she con- 
sidered an encroachment upon constitutional 
law, State sovereignty, or liberty ; fighting to 
the last extremity some of the most pronounced 
measures of the Confederate government, argu- 
ing and protesting against their policy, and yet 
in every case giving the substantial aid called 
for under such measures. Amid the direct 
necessities of the conflict she sought to preserve 
the principles of a constitutional government; 
she gave men and money whenever called for — 
more than called for; she prided herself upon 
the promptitude with which she obeyed every 
requisition for soldiers. But she made a decided 
11 



stand for the Constitution whenever she thought 
Confederate legislation invaded its principles, 
and, when the history of the war comes to be 
written, several of her conflicts of argument 
with the Confederate government will stand as 
famous episodes and historic constitutional land- 
marks. Governor Brown was the leading spirit 
and agent in the military administration of the 
State during the entire war. It would be diffi- 
cult to convey an idea of the military fervor of 
those days ; the South was in a delirium of 
threatened revolution, and Georgia was heated 
from seaboard to mountain. When it became 
certain that Georgia would secede, and the con- 
troversy arose between the Federal government 
and South Carolina about the occupation of her 
forts, Governor Brown ordered the occupation 
of Fort Pulaski by State troops until the ques- 
tion should be decided. His prompt and deci- 
sive action was in accordance with the spirit of 
the hour ; its effect on the other Southern States 
was electrical, and gave to Georgia that prestige 
which she held to the close of the war. The 
Georgia Secession Convention assembled on the 
1 6th of January, 1861, and was one of the ablest 
bodies ever convened in the State, including in 
its membership nearly every distinguished public 
man in the Commonwealth. Its President was 
George W. Crawford, formerly Representative 
in Congress, Governor of the State, and Secre- 
tary of War in President Taylor's cabinet. 
Among the members were Robert Toombs, 
United States Senator, afterwards Secretary of 
State for a short time in the Confederate admin- 
istration ; Linton Stephens, and his brother 
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the 
Confederacy, now member of Congress; ex- 
Governor Herschel V. Johnson, candidate for 
Vice-President of the United States on the 
Douglas ticket ; Judge E. A. Nisbet, of the Su- 
preme Court; Hon. B. H. Hill, present United 
States Senator; Alfred H. Colquitt, the present 
Governor of Georgia; Henry L. Benning, Judge 
of the Supreme Court; Hiram Warner, Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court, and a host of 
others equally well known. On the 18th of 
January a resolution declaring in favor of seces- 



162 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



sion was passed by 165 ayes to 130 nays, show- 
ing how strong the anti-secession party was at 
that time in Georgia; some of her ablest men, 
notably ex-Governor H. V. Johnson, the Ste- 
phens brothers, B. H. Hill, Chief Justice War- 
ner, etc., recording their votes in the negative. 
After the passage of the resolution the colonial 
flag of Georgia was raised, and, on the 19th of 
January, the ordinance of secession was passed 
by 209 ayes to 87 nays, the distinguished gentle- 
men above mentioned still opposing. When 
secession had been determined upon, however, 
the delegates all signed the ordinance, six doing 
so under protest. Georgia was the fifth State 
that seceded, having been preceded by South 
Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama. 
Governor Brown with characteristic promptitude 
hastened to make practical the sovereignty of 
the State. The United States flag still waved 
over the Augusta arsenal, where Captain Arnold 
Elzey was in command of a few troops, with a 
battery of two twelve-pound howitzers and two 
other cannon, besides 22,000 stand of muskets 
and rifles, and large stores of powder and shot. 
The Governor, through his aide-de-camp, Col- 
onel Henry R. Jackson, previously United 
States Minister to Austria, and subsequently 
Brigadier-General in the Confederate army and 
Major-General in the State service, made formal 
demand, January 23d, 1861, for the surrender 
of the arsenal, which, though at first refused, 
was afterwards acceded to, the company march- 
ing out with military honors amid a salute of 
thirty-three guns — one for each star on the old 
flag, which was then lowered. The flag of 
Georgia — pure white with a five-pointed star in 
the centre — was then raised, and salutes fired in 
honor of the five seceding States and the future 
Confederacy. One of the most dramatic epi- 
sodes connected with Georgia's war record was 
her bold reprisal upon New York, involving 
some sharp correspondence between Governor 
Morgan, of New York, and Governor Brown, of 
Georgia, and resulting in a substantial victory 
for Governor Brown. On the 2 2d of January 
the police of New York seized thirty-eight boxes 
of muskets shipped on the steamer " Monticello " 



for Savannah. D. C. Hodgkins & Son, of 
Macon, proved ownership to two hundred of 
the guns as their individual property, and ap- 
pealed to Governor Brown, who telegraphed to 
Governor Morgan," February 2d, 1S61 : "As 
Governor of Georgia I hereby demand that the 
guns be immediately delivered under your order 
to G. B. Lamar, of New York, who is hereby 
appointed my agent to receive them. I trust 
no similar outrage may be perpetrated in the 
future." No reply having been received to 
this, on the 5th of February the Governor tele- 
graphed his aide-de-camp, Colonel Henry R. 
Jackson, at Savannah, instructing him to direct 
Colonel A. R. Lawton " to order out sufficient 
military force and seize and hold subject to 
Executive order every ship now in the harbor 
of Savannah belonging to citizens of New York. 
When the property of which our citizens have 
been robbed is returned to them, the ships will 
be delivered to the citizens of New York who 
own them." After this order was issued a reply 
to his telegram was received from Governor 
Morgan, in which he acknowledged the receipt 
of Governor Brown's telegram, but said its 
grave character and unofficial form forbade his 
taking action in regard to it without better au- 
thenticated information, and requested Gov- 
ernor Brown to communicate by letter. On the 
8th five vessels were seized at Savannah, and 
riflemen placed in charge of them, with instruc- 
tions not to molest crew or cargo. On the 
same day Governor Brown wrote a full explana- 
tion of the matter to Governor Morgan, reiterat- 
ing his demand for the delivery of the guns, 
notifying him of the seizure of the vessels and 
of his intention to hold them until justice was 
done in the matter. On the 9th Mr. Lamar 
notified Governor Brown that the guns were at 
the service of their owners, and the ships were 
immediately ordered to be released. On direct- 
ing the guns to be shipped, however, Mr. Lamar 
was informed by the Superintendent of Police 
in New York that the authorities refused to 
allow the guns to be shipped and would seize 
more. Upon this Governor Brown promptly 
ordered the seizure of three other vessels and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



163 



advised Governor Morgan of his action, and 
also that if, by the 25th of March, the guns were 
not restored, the ships would be sold to pay for 
their loss. Governor Morgan, finding himself 
powerless against Governor Brown's summary 
methods of procedure, wisely released the guns, 
and, upon proof of shipment, the vessels seized 
were released and this novel altercation ended. 

The Convention authorized Governor Brown 
to raise two regiments of regulars and to purchase 
steamboats for the fortification of the rivers and 
the protection of inland navigation ; he promptly 
carried out their wishes, placed the vessels 
under the command of Commodore Tattnall, 
who had resigned from the United States navy, 
and offered his services to his native State. The 
strong points upon the coast around Brunswick 
were fortified, and garrisoned with six months' 
troops, under the command of Major-General 
Henry R. Jackson. In the meantime, the Con- 
gress at Montgomery had formed a provisional 
government, and Virginia had united herself 
with the Confederacy. Requisition after requi- 
sition was made upon Governor Brown for 
troops by the Confederate government, and he 
never made a call for volunteers that was not 
responded to by a much larger number of eager 
Georgians than were called for : up to October, 
1861, Georgia had in all forty full regiments in 
the Confederate service, and of those the State 
had armed, accoutred and equipped twenty- 
two regiments at her own expense, while of 
the Colonels of these forty regiments sixteen 
rose to the grade of Brigadier and Major- 
General. 

When in the summer of 1861 the canvass for 
Governor was commenced, the friends of Gov- 
ernor Brown, in view of the ability and vigor he 
had displayed in the defence of the State, and 
his exertions for the success of the Confederate 
cause, urged him to consent to become a candi- 
date for a third term ; this was contrary to all 
previous usage in the State, no one having 
hitherto occupied the office, by a popular vote, 
for more than two terms. He hesitated before 
he would consent to violate this well-established 
usage, but mature reflection convinced him that 



at this momentous period of the history of the 
State, duty required him to yield his objections. 
His opponents nominated Judge E. A. Nesbit, a 
gentleman of elevated character, who had been 
member of Congress, Judge of the Supreme 
Court, etc., and chairman of the committee that 
prepared and reported the ordinance of seces- 
sion, but the election resulted in the re-election 
of Governor Brown by nearly 15,000 majority. 
When the conscript act was passed by the Con- 
federate Congress, Governor Brown considered 
it a palpable violation of the constitution, 
and an utter disregard for the principles of 
State sovereignty, for the vindication of which 
he went into the contest. While he protested 
against the measure as a violation of the Consti- 
tution and a disregard of principle, he offered no 
active resistance to the execution of the con- 
script law in the State, further than to refuse to 
permit the State organization to be disturbed. 
At the time of the passing of the conscript act, 
he claims that he could have furnished fifty regi- 
ments of Georgians, if the President had called 
for so many. The people were everywhere eager 
to volunteer, but from the time the conscript 
act was enforced there was a great reluctance, 
never shown before, to go into the field. Even 
after that, however, there was no difficulty in fur- 
nishing troops promptly, and in larger numbers 
than called for, if they had the right to form 
their regiments at home and elect their own 
officers, as was shown by the fact that when the 
President called for twelve regiments of volun- 
teers, Governor Brown sent him eighteen. It was 
the constant practice in the North, when the Presi- 
dent made a requisition on the Governors of 
States for troops to furnish them organized into 
regiments : the same practice in Georgia would 
have given regiments so long as there were men 
out of whom to make them. Conscription was 
never a necessity in Georgia, and the most 
determined opposition to the conscript law came 
from that State; the controversies that ensued 
upon this and kindred "subjects between Gover- 
nor Brown and President Davis are matters of 
Southern history. Every inducement was of- 
fered, and every influence brought to bear upon 



164 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Governor Brown, including, it is said, the offer 
of a seat in President Davis' cabinet, to recon- 
cile him to the support of the conscript act, but 
without success. The correspondence between 
Governor Brown and President Davis on the 
constitutionality of this act was conducted with 
great ability and dignity on both sides, both 
showing themselves masters of the subject, and 
each presenting his own side with striking 
force. The Governor, in his first letter, stated 
that Georgia had seceded from the Union 
because the Federal Government had disre- 
garded the rights of the States, and contended 
that the conscription act placed it in the power 
of the Confederate executive to disorganize all 
State troops, and destroy Georgia's State govern- 
ment, by disbanding her law-making power. 
Under the conscript law every officer of the 
State government, the State employes, the 
mechanics, railroad operatives and State military 
officials, etc., could be forced into the Confed- 
erate service, and that it was unconstitutional for 
the executive to have such power. He argued 
that the act was in conflict with the Constitution, 
which reserved to the States the right to train 
the militia, and to appoint its officers. He 
declined to have anything to do with the enrol- 
ment of conscripts, reserving any test of the 
constitutionality of the act when it would less 
seriously embarrass the Confederate government 
in the prosecution of the war. In his second 
letter Governor Brown started out with the 
assurances that while, as an individual or execu- 
tive, he proposed to give the President all aid 
possible in the war, he did not propose to com- 
mit the State to a policy subversive of her sov- 
ereignty, and at war with the principles for 
which Georgia entered the revolution ; and 
wound up his letter with this paragraph : 
" Should you at any lime need additional troops 
from Georgia to fill up her just quota in propor- 
tion to the number furnished by the other States, 
you have only to call on the executive for the 
number required, to be organized and officered 
as the constitution directs, and your call will, as 
it nas ever done, meet a prompt resnonse from 
her noble and patriotic people, who, while they 



will watch with a jealous eye, even in the midst 
of -revolution, every attempt to undermine their 
constitutional rights, will never be content to 
be behind the foremost in the discharge of their 
whole duty." In his reply to this letter, Presi- 
dent Davis concludes thus: "In conclusion, I 
take great pleasure in recognizing that the his- 
tory of the past year affords the amplest justifica- 
tion of your assertion that if the question had 
been whether the conscription law was necessary. 
to raise men in Georgia, the answer must have 
been in the negative. Your noble State has 
promptly responded to every call that it has 
been my duty to make on her; and to you per- 
sonally, as her executive, I acknowledge my in- 
debtedness for the prompt, cordial, and effective 
co-operation you have afforded me in the effort to 
defend our common country against the common 
enemy." Four letters were written by Governor 
Brown, in which the whole question was discussed 
with much ability and at great length, and the pro- 
found interest in the controversy which pervaded 
the whole South, the importance of the subject, 
the high position of the gentlemen and the ability 
and dignity of the letters, made the discussion 
one of the mile-stones of the Confederate era. 

In May, 1863, a correspondence occurred 
between Governor Brown and Hon. James A. 
Seddon, Secretary of War, in regard to the 
right of the Fifty-first regiment of Georgia 
volunteers to fill by election the colonelcy made 
vacant by the killing of General Slaughter at 
Chancellorsville. The regiment was one of the 
twelve organized regiments turned over to the 
President in February, 1862, and declared by 
Mr. Benjamin, then Secretary of War, to be 
entitled to elect their own officers and have 
them commissioned by the Governor of Geor- 
gia. Governor Brown claimed that, apart from 
this pledge, this regiment came under the clause 
of the constitution reserving to the States the 
appointment of the officers. Mr. Seddon 
claimed that, under the conscription law, the 
President was authorized to appoint the officers: 
to which Governor Brown replied that the con- 
script law being in conflict with the constitu- 
tion, the constitution must govern. Mr. Seddon 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



165 



refused to yield, and the Governor concluded his 
final letter with — " The President has the power 
in his own hands, and I am obliged for the 
present reluctantly to acquiesce in what I con- 
sider a great wrong to thousands of gallant 
Georgia troops and a palpable infringement of 
the rights and sovereignty of the State. I will 
only add that this letter is intended more as a 
protest against your decision than as an effort to 
protract a discussion which it seems can be pro- 
ductive of no practical results." 

In July, 1863, Governor Brown ordered, in 
the event of there being insufficient volun- 
teers, a draft of eight thousand men for home 
defence, from persons between eighteen and 
forty-five, including British subjects. Mr. A. 
Fullarton, British Consul at Savannah, pro- 
tested against such service, stating that for 
maintaining internal peace and order British 
subjects were liable to duty, but not for fighting 
the United States ■ troops, claiming that the 
United States was not. a foreign power in rela- 
tion to Georgia. Governor Brown replied, re- 
fusing to exempt British subjects from such duty 
or to modify his order; the United States was a 
foreign nation at war with Georgia, and if the 
British subjects did not wish to incur the burden 
of living in Georgia, they could leave. Mr. 
Fullarton replied that while advising British 
subjects to do police or patrol duty, he coun- 
selled them that if they were required to leave their 
homes or meet the United States forces in actual 
conflict, to throw down their arms and refuse to 
render the service which violated their neutral- 
ity. He claimed that Governor Brown's course 
was in contrast with the practice of the United 
States Government and other Southern Govern- 
ors. Governor Brown replied that while Her 
Majesty's subjects live in Georgia, they must per- 
form the duties imposed upon them by the law 
of nations. That if Mr. Fullarton really thought 
that the United States was not a foreign power 
hostile to Georgia, he should have appealed for 
protection to British subjects resident in the 
State to the Government at Washington, and 
not to the Governor of Georgia, and added that 
if the subjects of Her Majesty should act on Mr. 



Fullarton's advice and throw down their arms on 
the approach of danger, and thus be guilty of 
the unnatural and unmanly conduct of refusing 
to defend their domiciles, they would be promptly 
dealt with as citizens of the State would be com- 
mitting such dishonorable delinquency. As to 
the United States exempting British subjects, as 
it had by the use of money drawn large numbers 
of recruits from the dominions of Her Majesty in 
violation of the laws of the realm, it might well 
afford to affect a pretended liberality which cost 
it neither sacrifice nor inconvenience. Mr. Ful- 
larton gave up the contest, and there is no report 
of any hardship being suffered. 

In the fall of 1863 the period again arrived for 
the Gubernatorial election, and Governor Brown 
again consented to become a candidate. The 
opposition despairing of his defeat by a single- 
handed contest determined to put in the field 
two candidates, Hon. Joshua Hill, who possessed 
the confidence of those opposed to secession, and 
Hon. Timothy Furlow, an active secessionist, so 
that they might draw off from the Governor the 
support of the extremists of both parties. The 
Constitution of the State required the successful 
candidate to poll a majority of all the votes cast 
or there was no election, and the choice must 
then be made by the Legislature. The canvass 
excited a lively interest, but Governor Brown 
was elected for his fourth term by a heavy ma- 
jority over both opponents. 

The fall of Vicksburg splitting the Confederacy 
asunder, the removal of General Joseph E. John- 
ston from the command of the army in Georgia 
after the retreat before Sherman to Atlanta^ the 
defeat of General Hood, July 22d, 1864, and the 
subsequent loss of Atlanta by the Confederates, 
engendered a desperate feeling in the South. 
Governor Brown had called out the militia in 
the State not included by the conscription law, 
embracing boys down to sixteen and old men up 
to fifty-five, and the State officers, many of 
whom had seen service and been discharged for 
disability. These men were dubbed " Joe 
Brown's pets," and all responded with alacrity 
to the call when the State was invaded. Ten 
thousand men and boys of this non-combatant 



i66 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



material were organized into companies and regi- 
ments, armed and equipped, choosing their own 
officers: General Gustavus W. Smith, of the old 
army, was made Major-General, and placed in 
command of these reserves, with General Robert 
Toombs as his Chief-of-Staff. General Smith 
reported to General Johnston, and, after his re- 
moval, to General Hood. In battle these troops 
behaved most gallantly. They were well offi- 
cered and elicited the approbation and praise of 
both generals. Two regiments of "bridge 
guards," so called because they were organized 
to guard the railway bridges in the northwestern 
portion of the State from the raids of Federal 
cavalry, were also turned over to General John- 
ston by the Governor. In the battle of July 
2 2d, 1864, the youngest brother of Governor 
Brown, Lieutenant-Colonel John M. Brown, 
commanding his regiment, was wounded while 
charging a battery, and died a few days after- 
wards. He had been wounded six weeks before, 
and without fully recovering had, against the ad- 
vice of his friends, returned to his regiment and 
paid the forfeit of his life. 

These troops, when under General Hood's 
command, were the occasion of the last memo- 
rable controversy between the Governor and the 
Confederate Government. President Davis, 
through Mr. Seddon, made requisition upon 
Governor Brown for these ten thousand militia 
and such other force as he might be able to 
raise — those in General Hood's department to 
report to him, and those outside to the com- 
mandant of South Carolina and Georgia. This 
requisition was dated August 30th, 1S64, and al- 
leged the condition of the State subjected to for- 
minable invasion as the basis for it. In the des- 
perate stress of the Confederacy and the stern 
spirit that pervaded all classes in the conscious- 
ness of impending disaster, the forms of polite- 
ness were ignored. The antagonism between 
these high officials had widened and become 
more embittered, and the correspondence was as 
fiery, incisive and biting as it was possible to 
be — it was war to the knife. The requisition 
of Mr. Seddon was received on the 12th of Sep- 
tember, and Governor Brown made immediate 



reply. He regretted that the President was so 
late in discovering that Georgia was in such 
danger. The " forminable invasion" began in 
May, and was still going on. He scathed the 
military policy that had scattered forces instead 
of concentrating at the point of danger, that had 
withheld reinforcements until the damage was 
accomplished, and that had left in our rear a 
camp of thirty thousand Federal prisoners. He 
scored the administration for not discovering 
that the troops asked for were already in the 
trenches fighting under General Hood. As the 
call for them was unnecessary, he argued that the 
President desired to get control of the whole of 
the reserve militia, disband its organization, and 
put his own officers over the troops. No other 
State had organized such a force not subject to 
conscription and placed it in command of a 
Confederate general; no such requisition was 
made upon the Governor of any State but Geor- 
gia, and no law of the Confederacy authorized 
it. The requisition, too, was made in such a 
manner as to take the troops out of the trenches 
rather than putting them in; dividing the troops 
and sending a part of them to Charleston, where 
there was no active military operations. Gov- 
ernor Brown refused to honor the requisition, 
but said he should keep these troops at the front 
under the command of the Confederate general 
as long as he stayed in Georgia. Governor 
Brown went on to say that Georgia had fifty 
regiments in Virginia, besides soldiers in every 
State, and if her brave sons could return to fight 
for their own State, they would drive back the 
invader or perish in the attempt. 

After a correspondence characterized by bitter 
recrimination on both sides, in which Mr. Sed- 
don charged that Governor Brown's prominent 
and influencing reasons sprang from " a spirit of 
opposition to the government of the Confederate 
States and animosity to the chief magistrate 
whom the people of the Confederacy had hon- 
ored by their choice and confidence;" and 
Governor Brown's reply that his animosity to 
the President was really his unwillingness to en- 
dorse the errors of his administration ; the 
Governor refers to the devastation of Georgia, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



167 



and says that the only slight barrier to the foe 
was this very militia of boys and old men that 
he refused to turn over to President Davis. Be- 
fore General Sherman left Atlanta with his army 
on his famous march to the sea, he sent Mr. 
William King, a citizen of Georgia, to Milledge- 
ville to inquire whether the State of Georgia 
would treat separately with him or the authori- 
ties of the United States for peace. In his reply 
Governor Brown said : " Say to General Sher- 
man that the sovereign State of Georgia has en- 
tered into a confederation with her Southern 
sisters for the maintenance of the same sover- 
eignty on the part of each severally, which she 
claims for herself, and her public faith thus 
pledged shall never be violated by me. Come 
weal or come woe, the State of Georgia shall 
never, with my consent, withdraw from the 
confederation in dishonor. She will never 
make separate terms with the enemy, which 
may free her territory from invasion, and leave 
her confederates in the lurch." But the end 
came. Georgia did all she could to avert the 
failure, and gave her sons and resources un- 
stintedly, and no State suffered more than she. 
After Johnston's retreat to the Chattahoochee 
and Sherman's capture of Atlanta, the northern 
section of the State became a lawless ruin and a 
wilderness of anarchy. A wide belt, from the 
mountains to the seaboard, four hundred miles 
in length and forty in width, was the theatre of 
unredeemed devastation. Nearly five hundred 
millions of her wealth was sacrificed. She 
trenched upon the cradle and the grave for 
fighting material. She furnished some of the 
most brilliant military capacity of the war as 
well as her share of the most conspicuous hero- 
ism. And while it may seem that her stickling 
for constitutional principle in the fierce exigen- 
cies of the strife was inopportune, it exhibits her 
conscientious conviction of public right and her 
uncompromising fidelity to duty. 

When the war had all but closed, Governor 
Brown still had in Georgia, after she had fur- 
nished nearly one hundred regiments to the 
Confederate army, a considerable military force 
under General Gustavus W. Smith. Generals 



Lee and Johnston had surrendered when Gen- 
eral Wilson, commanding a large force of Fed- 
eral cavalry, entered the State and summoned 
Governor Brown to surrender. They met at 
Macon, where the terms were agreed upon; the 
State troops were surrendered on the terms 
given to General Lee, and Governor Brown 
took his parole and returned to his home in 
Milledgeville. The next night the Executive 
mansion was surrounded by a Federal force, in 
command of a captain who informed the Gov- 
ernor that they were sent to arrest him. He 
denied their right, and tendered his parole. 
The captain replied : "I am instructed by Gen- 
eral Wilson to take that from you." The Gov- 
ernor protested against this outrage, as he had 
not violated his parole, and claimed that the 
faith of the United States was pledged for his 
protection. He was, however, compelled to 
yield to armed force and deliver up his parole, 
was allowed but thirty minutes to prepare for 
his departure, and not permitted a moment pri- 
vately with his family, and carried to Washing- 
ton and incarcerated in Carroll prison. He 
addressed a letter to President Johnson, stating 
the facts and protesting against the injustice 
done him, and at the. end of a week obtained a 
personal interview, at which the President prom- 
ised to investigate the case. After a few days' 
detention his release was ordered upon his 
parole, and he returned to Georgia, and on the 
30th of June, 1865, resigned his office as Gover- 
nor, as he was prevented by armed force from 
exercising its functions. 

In February Governor Brown and Judge D. A. 
Walker, of the Supreme Court of the State, visited 
Washington with the view of ascertaining the 
true situation of affairs. They had access to those 
high in authority of every shade of opinion, and 
after a careful investigation were satisfied that 
nothing less than a ratification by the Southern 
States of the Fourteenth Constitutional Amend- 
ment — conferring suffrage on the colored race — - 
would satisfy Congress or the people of the North, 
and in case of the rejection of the terms then dic- 
tated by Congress, they were convinced that other 
requirements would be added which the South 



1 68 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



■would be compelled to accept. On his return 
to Atlanta a number of citizens asked his views 
and advice on the situation, and in compliance 
with their request he prepared a letter for publi- 
cation advising the people of the South to accept 
the situation, comply with the terms and obtain 
representation in Congress again as soon as pos- 
sible, as the best they could do under the cir- 
cumstances. Before publishing this letter he 
submitted it to the inspection of some confiden- 
tial friends, saying he intended to publish it in 
the hope that the people might follow his advice 
and save themselves much embarrassment, misery 
and distress, adding: "But in the present ex- 
cited state of the popular mind, the chances are 
that bold leaders will inflame their passions and 
prejudices, and they will reject the terms pro- 
posed and have to suffer the consequences. And 
in that case, from having been for years one of 
the most popular men in Georgia, I shall become 
for a time the most unpopular from the Potomac 
to the Rio Grande." His friends, agreeing with 
this view, urged him to withhold the publication 
of the letter, saying: "As you hold no public 
trust, you are under no obligation to give advice 
which may injure you or your popularity," to 
which the Governor replied: " Gentlemen, I am 
indebted to the people of Georgia for all that I 
am as a public man, and I have made up my 
mind to tell them the truth and warn them of 
their danger, be the consequences what they 
may to me as an individual." Some of the 
popular leaders of the State soon came forward 
and in public meetings denounced Governor 
Brown's course, urging the people to reject the 
terms in disdain, and to fold their arms and 
take no part in the elections soon to be held for 
delegates to the convention called by the mili- 
tary under the act of Congress. Public excite- 
ment ran high, but Governor Brown did not 
hesitate, in the face of the strongest marks of 
popular disapproval, to warn them of the error 
they were committing. "We went into the 
war," he said, "to vindicate the doctrine of 
State Sovereignty and sustain slavery. When 
we appealed to the arbitrament of the sword and 
invoked the God of battles, we were bound to 



abide the decision. That decision was against 
us, and we have no other alternative but submis- 
sion. If we could not sustain our cause with 
500,000 bayonets, in the hands of as many 
brave, heroic men. how shall we uphold it after 
we have been compelled to make an uncondi- 
tional surrender? Slavery and State Sovereignty 
are both practically lost." Through his influ- 
ence and that of a few more patriotic, self-sacri- 
ficing men, some 30,000 to 40,000 white men 
went to the polls and voted for good men, car- 
rying with them a sufficient number of the negro 
votes to secure the election of a number of able 
representatives. When the convention met, 
Governor Brown, who was ineligible as a mem- 
ber, had much to do with influencing its coun- 
sels and shaping its action, and the result was 
that in the main an excellent Constitution was 
secured. Had his advice been taken, and the 
whole people of the State taken part in the elec- 
tions and accepted the situation, most of the 
difficulties through which her people afterward 
passed, and millions of debt which the State was 
saddled with, might have been avoided. Had 
the people of the South followed his advice and 
complied as promptly with the terms dictated 
by Congress as they did with those dictated by 
President Johnson, there would have been no 
Fifteenth Amendment, as the faith of Congress 
was pledged, on such compliance, to have ad- 
mitted all of the Southern States back to their 
equal position in the Union. The supplemental 
acts of Congress and the Fifteenth Amendment 
grew out of the unwise course pursued by the 
people of the South. In the spring of 1S6S the 
popular excitement in the South became so high 
that those who acted with the Reconstruction 
party were not only socially ostracised, but 
were in many cases in personal peril. At that 
time the South looked to the Democratic party 
to undo all that had been done by Congress and 
replace the State governments created under 
President Johnson. The plan, as announced by 
many prominent leaders, was to elect a Demo- 
cratic President, and let him declare the Recon- 
struction acts unconstitutional and void, and 
refuse to execute them, and leave the Southern 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN- OF THE SOUTH. 



t6j 



States free to displace the governments set 
up under the Reconstruction acts. Governor 
Brown became satisfied that such an attempt 
must cause more strife and bloodshed ; and it 
being well understood at that time that General 
Grant would be the Republican candidate for 
President, he was of opinion that, under the 
circumstances, his election was necessary for the 
maintenance of peace and order; and that, con- 
sidering the extreme and dangerous policy advo- 
cated by the Democratic leaders, there was no 
other course for him, and others who had ac- 
cepted the situation, than to act with the Re- 
publicans and aid in the election of General 
Giant. After he was forced to this conclusion, 
he went as a delegate to the Chicago Conven- 
tion, voted for Grant's nomination and advo- 
cated his election in the canvass that ensued. 
After Grant's election, however, when the harsh 
and aggressive nature of his attitude towards the 
South became apparent, and in view of the 
altered feeling of the Southern people, who had 
abandoned all their wild schemes of resistance 
to the recent legislation, he publicly announced, 
before the termination of President Grant's first 
term, his strong disapproval of the course pur- 
sued by him and the Republican party. On the 
nomination of Horace Greeley to the Presi- 
dency, in 1872, he accorded him his hearty 
support, and since that time has acted steadily 
with the Democratic party. After the Seymour 
canvass the Democrats ceased to be so violent in 
their denunciation of the Constitutional amend- 
ments and Reconstruction measures, and it is 
not a little singular that the very leaders who 
had so loudly arraigned them, expressed their 
acquiescence in the Constitutional amendments 
in the Democratic Convention which nominated 
Horace Greeley; while in the convention at 
which S. J. Tilden was nominated they affirmed 
in their platform their devotion to them. Every 
one also who has since held office has sworn to 
support the Constitution as it now stands with 
those amendments. Neither in 1868 nor at any 
time since has Governor Brown expressed his 
devotion to the amendments, but he acquiesced 
in them as a necessity resulting from the war. 



When the Legislature met, in 1868, Governor 
Brown was nominated by the caucus of the Re- 
publican party as a candidate for the United 
States Senate for the "long term," in the belief 
that he could, -on account of his position on the 
Reconstruction question, be of service in the 
Senate in securing the early readmission of the 
State to the Union. As he had been considered 
the leader of the Reconstruction party in the 
State, the Democratic leaders made bitter war 
upon him and used every means possible to se- 
cure his defeat. Hon. Joshua Hill, who pro- 
fessed to be a Republican, became an Indepen- 
dent candidate, and was able to gain the support 
of a small number of Republicans, seeing which 
the Democrats voted for him almost unani- 
mously and thus secured his election. Soon 
afterwards Governor Bullock nominated Gover- 
nor Brown as Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the State for twelve years, which was 
confirmed by the Senate. He occupied the 
Bench at a time when many vexed questions, 
arising out of the new order of things, required 
decision, where the court had no precedent to 
guide it ; but his decisions have generally stood 
the test of time and compare favorably with 
those of other like tribunals. Finding this po- 
sition a very laborious and confining one, and 
the duties so arduous as to impair his health, he 
tendered his resignation in 1870. In the same 
year he became one of the lessees of the Western 
and Atlantic Railroad, running from Atlanta to 
Chattanooga, a distance, of 138 miles, under the 
act of the Legislature authorizing the Governor 
to lease it to a company. This railroad was 
commenced in 1837, and built entirely by ap- 
propriations from the State, and, with the ex- 
ception of the period when it was under his 
control as Governor of Georgia, had paid but 
little into the State Treasury. During his ad- 
ministration it paid in an average of $300,000 
per annum for about five years, and the rest of 
the time, being the latter part of the Confederate 
era, a very large amount was paid in in Confed- 
erate currency. It was leased by the State for 
the sum of $25,000 per month to twenty-three 
gentlemen, among whom were Colonel Thomas 



170 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



A. Scott and Hon. Simon Cameron, of Penn- 
sylvania, Hon. Columbus Delano, of Ohio, Wil- 
liam T. Walters, of Baltimore, Colonel E. W. 
Cole, President of the Nashville, Chattanooga 
and St. Louis Railroad, Thomas Allen, President 
of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, 
John P. King, of Augusta, Hon. B. H. Hill, 
Governor Joseph E. Brown, and others. On 
the organization of the company Governor 
Brown was unanimously chosen President, and, 
being thoroughly acquainted with its capabili- 
ties from his previous experience of its manage- 
ment while in the Executive chair, he immedi- 
ately, on taking charge, reorganized it on 
thorough business principles and appointed an 
entirely new staff of officers. When he took 
charge he found the road run down to the low- 
est point, the permanent way and rolling stock 
being completely worn out. The pay-roll was 
at once cut down to reasonable limits, wooden 
bridges were replaced by iron ones, steel rails 
were substituted for iron, the rolling stock re- 
built and a thorough reform instituted in every 
department. The lease is for twenty years at 
the rate of $300, 000 per annum, paid monthly ; 
the road cost the State from $6,000,000 to 
$7,000,000 in its construction ; thus it will be 
seen that in the twenty years the lessees will 
have paid the State $6,000,000, for the due per- 
formance of which they have jointly entered into 
a bond for $8,000,000. The road is a trunk-line 
to the West, with a net-work of roads at each 
end, and is subject to a tax of one-half of one per 
cent, on its net income in Georgia, and about 
$4,000 a year in Tennessee. Governor Brown 
is also the President of the Dade Coal Company, 
whose land, about 15,000 acres, is situated at 
Sand Mountain, in the northwest corner of the 
State on the borders of both Tennessee and 
Alabama. It was originally a private company, 
but has since been incorporated ; half the stock 
is owned by Joseph E. Brown and his son, 
Julius L. Brown, and the remainder by Jacob 
W. Seaver, of Boston, W. C. Morell, Treasurer 
of the Western and Atlantic Railroad, Colonel 
John T. Grant, and his son, W. D. Grant. There 
are two seams of coal at present being worked — 



the Dade coal and the Castle Rock coal ; the 
former has a seam of about five feet in thickness, 
and is an excellent coal for steam purposes, 
almost free from sulphur, and considered equal 
to the Connellsville coal of Pennsylvania for 
coke ; the Castle Rock, with a seam of three feet 
to three and a half feet, is a fine grate coal and 
a good steam coal, being especially suitable for 
iron-mills, and yields good coke. The tunnel- 
ing runs into the west side of Sand Mountain for 
nearly half a mile, consisting of three parallel 
tunnels with cross tunnels ; the mine is in excel- 
lent condition and under the charge of an Eng- 
lish captain. The company leases three hundred 
convicts from the State for twenty years, at an 
average cost of twenty dollars per capita per 
annum ; they are clothed, fed and guarded by 
the company, the latter so carefully that but one 
has escaped in five years. Good labor is ex- 
pected from them, but they have comfortable 
quarters and are well fed, some sixty acres being 
devoted to the raising of every kind of vegetable 
for their use. 

The present product of the mine is about ten 
thousand bushels a day, and the coal is used 
largely for railroad purposes, rolling-mills and 
domestic uses, and the coke for iron smelting. 
A railroad five miles long has been built by the 
company from Shell Mound, on the Nashville, 
Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad, to the foot 
of Sand Mountain, and a narrow-gauge line of 
two and a half miles cut into the side of the 
mountain in a zig-zag brings down the coal 
from Dade Mine to the broad-gauge road 
beneath, while an incline, worked by steel-wire 
traction, brings down the coal from Castle 
Rock to the foot where are situated the coke- 
ovens. Shops for the construction and repair 
of cars, and every convenience for carrying 
on the operations of the company, are to be 
found at the works. The company employs 
about fifty hands, in addition to the convicts, 
as overseers, guards, engineers, firemen, etc., 
etc., and the amount paid out in salaries for 
guards alone averages $11,000 per annum. 

Governor Brown assumed control of the com- 
pany in 1S72, the act of incorporation expressly 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



171 



stating that he shall manage its affairs, and by 
the admirable methodical system he has inaugu- 
rated he is kept acquainted, while in Atlanta, 
with every detail of the operations at the mines, 
and is thus enabled to achieve a degree of effi- 
ciency combined with economy that would 
otherwise be impossible. During the great 
panic in 1873, when commercial interests were 
paralyzed all over the country, the Dade Coal 
Company, then only twelve months in exist- 
ence, felt the depressed state of trade severely, 
but the able financiering skill of Governor 
Brown piloted it safely through all dangers. 

Governor Brown is also the President of the 
Southern Railway and Steamship Association, 
formed of the representatives of nearly all the 
railroad and steamship companies interested in 
Southern traffic. The Association is a very ex- 
tensive one, embracing nearly all the railroad 
corporations from the Potomac to the Ohio and 
east of the Mississippi, and every steamship line 
running down the coast. They meet frequently 
for the discussion of passenger and freight rates, 
and the protection of their mutual interests. 
Governor Brown was elected President of this 
Association at its inauguration, in 1874, and has 
been re-elected annually up to the present time. 

Governor Brown has all his life been deeply 
interested in the question of education, and 
since the difficult problem of education for the 
colored race has been pressing for solution, has 
given close attention and much time to the sub- 
ject. In Atlanta an excellent system of public 
education, supported by taxation out of the city 
treasury, has been in existence for the past eight 
years. There are two high-schools and seven 
grammar-schools, four for the white and three 
for the colored, who are kept entirely separate, 
and some sixty teachers. The Board of Educa- 
tion, organized under a statute of the State, con- 
sists of thirteen members, of whom the Mayor 
of Atlanta is ex officio one. Governor Brown 
was elected President of the Board at its first 
inauguration, and has been re-elected to the 
office periodically ever since. He has also been 
a Trustee of the State University at Athens for 
the past twenty year's. 



Raised on a farm, Joseph E. Brown has that 
instinctive love for the soil implanted in the 
breast of every true agriculturalist, and every 
detail of farm-life and labor is familiar to his 
hand. He has a large plantation in Cherokee 
county, on the Etov/ah river, another in Gordon 
county, on the Coosawattee river, a smaller one 
in Fulton county, and a fourth in Cherokee 
county. His land is rented to tenants of both 
races, and, providing they are industrious and 
of good character, one receives as much encour- 
agement as the other. Wheat, rye, oats, clover 
and other grasses are cultivated with much suc- 
cess, and about one-tenth is planted in cotton ; 
the Governor, as in all other matters in which 
he is engaged, takes a personal interest in the 
success of his tenants, aiding and encouraging 
them with his advice and contributing materi- 
ally to their prosperity. Being desirous that 
two of his sons should become practically ac- 
quainted, as he is himself, with every detail of a 
farmer's life and duties, he gave them each a 
piece of land which they were to cultivate them- 
selves totally unaided : ploughing the land, sow- 
ing the crop and personally performing the labor 
of a farm-hand, so that they might become prac- 
tically acquainted with every department of 
agricultural life. The elder of the two having 
gone back to finish his collegiate course, the 
younger, now nineteen years of age, is left in 
sole control of the plantations, some fifteen hun- 
dred and twenty acres in extent, having the 
management of the tenants and the supervision 
of the crops, in which he is succeeding well. 

State Senator, Judge of the Superior Court, 
Governor of the State for four consecutive terms, 
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
State ; the only man who has ever presided over 
the three Departments, the Legislative, Execu- 
tive and Judicial, having been th.e head of two 
of them and occasionally presided over the 
other ; Joseph E. Brown has achieved the most 
remarkable political success ever known in the 
history of Georgia. Possessed of a vigorous and 
comprehensive intellect, capable of the pro- 
foundest thought and the broadest generaliza- 
tions, and with unequaled power of influencing 



172 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



and controlling men, he seized the public mind 
and impressed himself upon public affairs with 
more force than any public man in Georgia ever 
did before. Rich as Georgia has been in re- 
markable men, it may be doubted if she ever 
produced a man with more force of character 
than he. A close student from his youth up, no 
man has been more economical of time and 
opportunity for self-improvement; methodical 
and systematic, every department of knowledge 
has received some share of his attention. In a 
life crowded to the full with incident ; with 
multifarious interests, each one sufficient to 
engross the attention of any ordinary man, he 
has, by a systematic daily division of his time, 
been enabled to give sufficient attention to each 
in its turn, and thus, the busiest of men, to find 
ample leisure for all. His whole public life has 
been one continued combat : he assaulted the 
entire banking interests enthroned in the cities 
and overcame them; "he defied and rode rough- 
shod over the press when it assailed him ; he 
antagonized the General Assembly on measures 
where he considered them wrong ; and was suc- 
cessful in every conflict. During the entire war 
he was the leading spirit in its military organi- 
zation, the sturdy upholder of State sovereignty, 
the bitter and determined opponent of the con- 
script law — and his popularity was unbounded. 
Popular as he was, from the seaboard to the 
mountains, his unpopularity has been equally 
great. He was, during the reconstruction period, 
the most execrated public man the State has 
ever known, a painful position that would have 
overwhelmed a man of less force and elasticity. 
This arose from his advising the people to accept 
the situation after the surrender, and his decla- 
ration that, as a conquered people, the South 
had no alternative but to submit to the terms 
imposed. The losses of kinsmen in battle and 
total destruction of property were too recent to 
make people take kindly to the severe terms im- 
posed, and Governor Brown was generally de- 
nounced. His rising above that unpopularity 
is the most wonderful example of political 
vitality ever known. True to his friends, but an 
unyielding opponent, fertile in resources, a 



shrewd judge of men, a potential ally and a 
dangerous antagonist, strong in common sense, 
and with nerve for anything, "Joe Brown," as 
he is familiarly called, has been and will be a 
power in Georgia as long as he lives. As a 
financier he has no superior in his State ; during 
his term in the Executive office, the rigid 
economy practised by him in his public ex- 
penditure, and the large amounts paid into the 
treasury from the State Railroad, through his 
skilful management, enabled him to reduce the 
State taxes to six and a half cents in the hun- 
dred dollars, the lowest rate of any State in the 
Union at that time. 

He is a prominent and active member of the 
Baptist Church, proving his faith by his works, 
and no one is more liberal in the use of his am- 
ple means for charitable and benevolent purposes. 
He married, July 13th, 1847, Elizabeth, daugh- 
ter of the Rev. Joseph Grisham, a Baptist minis- 
ter of Pickens county, S. C., his wife's family 
being by intermarriages connected with the 
family of the distinguished statesman, John C. 
Calhoun. He has seven children living: his 
eldest son, Julius L. Brown, a graduate of the 
State University, and of the Cambridge Law 
School, Harvard University, is a prominent law- 
yer in Atlanta; Joseph M. Brown, his second son, 
was educated for a lawyer, but his weak eyesight 
has compelled him to abandon the law, and he is 
now a promising railroad man; Elijah A. Brown, 
his fourth son, is at present in the senior class at 
the State University; Charles M. Brown, the 
fifth, is now in charge of a plantation on the 
Coosawattie river, Gordon county, and George 
M. Brown, his youngest son, is a student at the 
Atlanta High School. His eldest daughter is the 
wife of Dr. E. L. Connally, a prominent physician 
of Atlanta, and the younger, Miss Sallie, is now 
in her teens. His third son, Franklin Pierce 
Brown, died at the age of eighteen, having been 
afflicted with -spinal disease all his life. He was 
self-educated, and a young man of phenomenal 
talents and great promise. He left a library of 
over a hundred volumes, every one of which he 
had read and mastered. A beautiful monument 
of Carrera marble is erected to his memorv in 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



173 




Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, the whole of the 
sculpture — of rare excellence — having been exe- 
cuted in Italy. It bears the following tribute 
to his memory: "Of this extraordinary youth 
the distinguished statesman, Hon. A. H. Ste- 
phens, wrote: 'Such a prodigy of intellect and 
virtue in a body so frail, I never met with in any 
other human form, and never expect to if I 
live a thousand years. ' ' ' 



DR. J. S. WEATHERLY. 

Alabama. 

[ OB SOBIESKI WEATHERLY was born 
at Bennettsville, Marlborough county, 
S. C, July 8th, 1828, and is the son of 
Job Weatherly, a native of Maryland, 
of English descent, who settled in South 
Carolina during the Revolutionary war. His 
grandparents on the maternal side, the McRaes, 
emigrated from Scotland to South Carolina, his 
mother's father serving in Marion's division 
during the Revolution. 

His eldest brother, Thomas Christopher 
Weatherly, was a planter and prominent poli- 
tician in South Carolina, and to his foresight 
Dr. Weatherly was indebted for the choice of 
his profession. He occupied a number of 
prominent offices, being tax-collector at twenty- 
one years of age, and afterwards sheriff; served 
for several years in the lower house of the State 
Legislature, and subsequently in the Senate from 
Marlborough county ; he was universally popular 
among both the white and colored population, 
and, since the war, received the support of both 
races in his elections to the State Legislature. 
Had not his ill health prevented, he might have 
aspired to any office in the gift of the people. 
He died July, 1S78. 

Dr. Weatherly received his education at the 
Bennettsville High School, Marlborough county, 
S. C, and commenced the study of medicine 
under Dr. Alexander McLeod in his native 
town. After two years' study he went North, 
where he spent two years as a private pupil of 
Dr. P. A. Aylett, and in attending lectures at 



the Medical Department of the University of 
New York, whence he graduated in 1849. Bi 
July, 1851, he commenced the practice of his 
profession in Adairsville, Ga., but in August of 
that year removed to Palmetto, Coweta county, 
where he established himself in a profitable 
practice. In January, 1857, he removed to 
Montgomery, Ala., where the rapidity with 
which he acquired a prominent position was 
something remarkable. He has resided there 
ever since, and now enjoys one of the largest 
and most responsible practices in that city. In 
April, 1862, he was made surgeon of a hospital 
at Shiloh, and on his return to Montgomery, re- 
ceived the appointment of Medical Purveyor of 
the Department of the Mississippi. Shortly af- 
terward he was ordered to Savannah, but soon 
sent in his resignation in consequence of sickness 
in his family. Returning to Montgomery he 
was offered an appointment in the hospitals 
there, but declined, and except when his ser- 
vices were needed, confined himself to his pri- 
vate practice during the remainder of the war. 
In 1866, in conjunction with Drs. Baldwin, 
Gaston, Michel and others, he organized the 
Montgomery Medical and Surgical Society, of 
which he was afterwards President for two years 
in succession, and in January, 1879, was elected 
for his third term. The Medical Association of 
the State of Alabama had been in existence pre- 
vious to the war, but was suspended during the 
struggle. In 1867, mainly owing to the exer- 
tions of Dr. Weatherly, it was reorganized ; he 
afterwards became its First Vice-President, sub- 
sequently its Orator, and in 1875 its President. 
He has always been intimately connected with 
the association, and is now a censor, and mem- 
ber of the State Board of Health, established 
under its auspices. Drs. Weatherly, Gaston 
and Michel were mainly instrumental in secur- 
ing the passage through the Legislature of the 
bills establishing the State Board of Health, 
Regulating the Practice of Medicine in the 
State, and securing the necessary appropriation, 
and by their persistent and untiring exertions 
this great step in the direction of sanitary reform 
has been accomplished. 



174 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In 1868 the American Medical Association 
held its annual meeting at Washington, at which 
some few Southern delegates were present for 
the first time since the beginning of the war. 
Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Weatherly were delegates 
from the Montgomery Medical and Surgical 
Society, and Dr. Weatherly was placed on the 
Nominating Committee. He had been led to 
believe by the highest authority that a large 
number of the Northern and Western delegates, 
in a spirit of reconciliation towards their South- 
ern brethren, so long estranged, were desirous 
of supporting a Southern man for president. 
Both he and Dr. Baldwin were new members — 
only elected at that meeting — and consequently 
he was totally unacquainted with those present. 
When the nominations were made, the names 
of Dr. Cox, of Washington, Dr. George Men- 
denhall, of Cincinnati, and Dr. W. O. Baldwin, 
of Montgomery, were proposed, the latter by 
Dr. Weatherly, who was surprised and chagrined 
to find that he had been misled as to the inten- 
tions of the delegates mentioned, and mortified 
that his nominee, Dr. Baldwin, at first received 
but limited support. Having once engaged in 
the contest, however, he was determined to 
carry it to a successful issue, and with character- 
istic energy spoke and argued the question at 
great length. When it became known among 
the members that Dr. Baldwin's nomination 
would be considered as holding out the right 
hand of fellowship to the South, and his distin- 
guished position in the profession was fully 
realized, he gradually gained strength as ballot 
after ballot was taken, until he received the re- 
quired number of votes to insure nomination. 
A recess was then taken, and some dissatisfied 
delegates advanced the opinion that Dr. Bald- 
win, having only been elected a member at that 
meeting, was ineligible. On reassembling for 
the evening session, it was moved to reconsider 
the nomination, and Dr. Arnold, of Scvannah, 
was advocated as Dr. Baldwin's substitute. 

Nothing daunted by these tactics, Dr. Weath- 
erly pressed the claims of his candidate with 
persistent vigor, and in spite of the fact that on 
one ballot Dr. Arnold received almost enough 



votes to secure nomination, by his untiring ex- 
ertions Dr. Baldwin was eventually unanimously 
nominated for President. At that time Dr. 
Baldwin was personally unknown to the majority 
of the members present, but by the able manner 
in which he filled the presidential chair and the 
eloquent addresses he delivered with a view to 
promoting harmony between the two sections, 
he fully vindicated Dr. Weatherly's champion- 
ship of his claims, and that gentleman gained 
many warm friends who showed their apprecia- 
tion of his manliness and courage by nominating 
him, in his absence, in 1870, unanimously for 
First Vice-President, a fact hitherto totally un- 
precedented. In May, 1871, he attended the 
meeting of the American Medical Association, 
held in San Francisco, Cal. ; delegates were 
present from twenty-four States and Territories 
east of the Rocky mountains, and many of the 
wives, daughters and lady friends of the physi- 
cians accompanied the party. Dr. Weatherly, 
in a letter to Dr. E. S. Gaillard, editor of the 
Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal, de- 
scribed his "Impressions by the Wayside " on 
his journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
ocean, from which we have only space for a 
few graphic extracts. After passing Wahsatch 
Station, in the beautiful range of mountains of 
that name, where the road runs along 7,400 feet 
above the level of the sea, he says : 

" We enter Echo Canon, at Castle Rock, and 
now find ourselves surrounded by scenery too 
grand to be described. We are going ' down 
grade,' and thunder along as if running over a 
smooth plain. Rugged mountains to our right 
and left and front; perfectly barren on the right 
except a few pines or cedars, whilst to the left 
they are covered with green verdure and flowers. 
To the right they ascend to immense heights, 
their tops crowned with snow, while small ever- 
greens dot their sides, or hang amid the clefts 
which extend frequently from top to bottom. 
Hanging Rock and the old Mormon fortifica- 
tions are now passed, and we stop for a few 
moments at Echo City. There all eyes are 
turned to the left to see the one-thousandth mile 
tree. It is a pine of considerable size, no other 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



175 



tree near it, and a white board, with 'One thou- 
sand miles' painted on it, nailed to the tree. 
Echo Canon being left behind, we now dart into 
Weber Canon, where the scenery is even grander 
and more magnificent. The mountains approach 
so near as to almost meet, and they just leave 
room enough for the railroad, Weber river, a 
small mountainous stream, and the old emigrant 
track. These three things occupy all the vacant 
place between the mountains, and it seems as 
though Nature had an eye to this when the 
canon was formed. You look up and see the 
mountains frowning down from their immense 
heights. Far below us we see the Weber, dash- 
ing and plunging along, while hugging closely 
to the foot of the mountains the old emigrant 
road winds its picturesque way. You even see 
occasionally a little white-covered wagon, with 
a few cattle going slowly along, just as the old 
emigrants did ere the engine's whistle echoed 
along these mountain sides. The ride through 
this canon is delightful beyond description, and 
you look and look until you are almost bewil- 
dered. The mountains assume all sorts of fig- 
ures; you see the old feudal castle, with its lines 
of defenders; the solemn cathedral, and, with a 
little effort of the imagination, even the priest 
in his robes. Huge animals are also repre- 
sented, and at last you have scarcely time to 
think, so fast do new beauties burst upon the 
sight. Imagination is almost suspended, and a 
feeling of awe gradually envelopes you. The 
feeble efforts of your neighbors to express their 
feelings in words is irritating. You feel that 
words are impotent — that the subject is too 
grand to be compassed by them. You sit still 
and mute, looking and wondering, as the grand 
book of Nature is unfolding before your enrap- 
tured vision. A devotional feeling gradually 
steals over you, and the mind humbly lifts itself 
from this contemplation of Nature's works to 
Nature's God. ... To the left a beautiful 
sheet of water, calm and placid in the gray mist 
of the morning. This was Donner Lake. It is 
situated upon the top of the (Nevada) moun- 
tains, and looks like a bright jewel in a setting 
of white, fringed with green. The snow covers 



the ground to a depth of several inches, even 
now (end of April), whilst the green pines, 
cedar and fir trees wave their beautiful tops high 
into the air. This lake is undoubtedly the crater 
of an extinct volcano. It is three and a half 
miles in length by one mile in width. The 
bottom has never been found ; it has been 
sounded to a depth of 1,700 feet. I know of no 
place that would be more attractive to the tour- 
ist or artist than this beautiful region around 
Donner Lake. . . . Leaving this beautiful spot 
with regrets, we are soon in the midst of some 
of the most beautiful as well as grandest scenery 
in the world. Unlike the Rocky mountains, 
which are grand and solemn, there is a world 
of beauty surrounding the Nevadas, which ren- 
ders them indescribably interesting. We feel a 
pang of sorrow that they are so far away that 
comparatively so few persons can ever see them. 
Two engines are again at work, and slowly we 
ascend until we are 7,040 feet above the sea. 
We pass mountain upon mountain, with fearful 
chasms between them, the whole covered with 
pine, cedar and fir trees rising from a bed of 
snow sometimes to immense heights. We now 
start 'down grade,' the descent being nearly 
100 feet to the mile. We are going at a rapid 
speed, the mountains towering above us. We 
rush through tunnels and snow-sheds, catching 
an occasional glimpse of a beautiful mountain 
stream which sparkles in the early morning sun. 
The observation car is again attached, and we 
rush into it, so as to have a good view as we 
round Cape Horn, which we are rapidly ap- 
proaching. At eight a. m. our train halts on a 
small projection from the mountain. The moun- 
tains are high above us, and we look almost 
directly down for a thousand feet below us. We 
are so near the edge of the precipice that some 
of the ladies, and perhaps gentlemen also, begin 
to feel quite nervous. Far below you see the 
river skirting the foot of the mountain, while a 
beautiful little valley, almost round, stretches 
away to the opposite hills." 

Dr. Alfred Stille, of Philadelphia, was the 
President at that meeting, but Dr. Weatherly, as 
First Vice-President, presided a considerable 



176 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



portion of the time. The question of female 
representation in the association was brought 
forward by some of the Philadelphia delegation, 
and debated at length and with much excite- 
ment in the presence of several female delegates, 
who had seats on the floor. Many of the speak- 
ers displayed much warmth in their argument, 
and the advocates and opponents of the question 
being pretty equally divided, considerable tact 
and much firmness was required in the presiding 
officer to preserve order during the somewhat 
tempestuous debate. Finally a resolution was 
introduced to refer the whole question to the 
local societies in Philadelphia, who had, through 
their delegates, forced the subject on the atten- 
tion of the association. After the meeting was 
over, Dr. Weatherly was very highly compli- 
mented by the members for his judicious and 
impartial conduct while in the chair. In 1871 
he delivered an address before the State Medical 
Association, at Mobile, Ala., on Medical Edu- 
cation, in which he says: 

" For years past the great complaint of Ameri- 
can physicians has been that, although the sci- 
ence of medicine was evidently advancing, yet 
it was being so crowded with illiterate and in- 
competent men as to greatly retard its march 
toward that perfection which all good men wish 
to see it attain; and that if something was not 
done, and that quickly, too, it would soon be 
lost in the ample folds of quackery and empiri- 
cism, whose ranks are being constantly replen- 
ished from the innumerable medical colleges 
whose cheap tuition and low requirements for 
graduation induce men to become students of 
medicine who are not fitted either mentally or 
morally for becoming acquainted with a science 
second to none in importance, and more diffi- 
cult than any other of being mastered in all its 
various branches ; a science deep-rooted and 
widespread, affecting every one, rich and poor; 
more deeply interesting to humanity than any 
other calling, dealing both with the physical 
and moral man. Strange indeed is it that the 
people do not recognize the fact of its intimate 
relations with their welfare and happiness, and 
demand, in tones not to be mistaken, that none 



but men of high culture, mentally and morally, 
should be admitted into this priesthood, whose 
business it is to watch over them in the journey 
of life, seeing that this life, which cannot be re- 
stored once it is gone, be prolonged to its fullest 
extent, that the lives of themselves and their 
loved ones be not terminated too soon by an 
unfortunate diagnosis or a failure to apply the 
right remedies at the proper time. . . . With 
the view of making an organized movement in 
opposition to the downward tendency of the 
profession in this country, some twenty-three 
years since the American Medical Association 
was formed. It has been faithfully at work from 
that time to the present; and very much has 
been done by that body in elevating the tone of 
the profession all over this country and in di- 
recting the minds of medical men to the great 
necessity of reform. But its influence being ex- 
erted morally alone, and from the fact that the 
colleges have always had sucli large representa- 
tions in its councils, and from the almost im- 
possibility of getting uniform action between 
them (without which it is evident nothing can 
be done), few permanent and practical changes 
have been made. . . . That it will never recom- 
mend cheap medical education as a means of 
progress and reform, I am fully convinced. . . . 
The evident effect of cheap medical education 
would undoubtedly be to induce a great many 
to enter the profession who, as Dr. Cochran 
says, 'Study medicine as a mere trade, not as a 
liberal profession, and they are chiefly anxious 
to get a diploma, which gives them a quasi re- 
spectable position in the world with the least 
possible expenditure of time and money: ' men 
who will not have the necessary groundwork 
naturally or by education, without which it is 
impossible to become scientific physicians. All 
cheap things are valued accordingly, and when 
it takes no more time, money or preparation to 
enter what should be a learned profession than 
it does one which does not absolutely require 
much learning, they will reason that as it will 
probably sound better to be called doctor than 
tradesman, and as it will take no more outlay 
(or not so much) of time or money to acquire a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



177 



profession than it will to get a trade, they will 
become doctors ; and if they cannot succeed at 
legitimate medicine, they can swell the ranks 
of the quacks, and eke out a livelihood by im- 
posing upon the credulity of the public, which 
unfortunately, they soon learn, is easily done. 
. . . Under the present system of medical edu- 
cation as generally adopted in the United States, 
we find that the ranks of legitimate medicine 
(not counting quacks) is more than full, and 
that, according to the best statistics, we have 
about one doctor to every two hundred and fifty 
inhabitants who are able to pay for the services 
of a physician. . . . Until the standard of 
medical education is raised, and its honors 
placed so high as to be coveted by the best and 
brightest intellects in the land, can we expect 
relief from the profession alone, independent of 
the colleges? It is evident, then, that the pro- 
fession cannot be benefited by any process whose 
tendency is to create a greater supply of doctors 
than is necessary for the welfare of the people. 
In Europe the governments take care that the 
supply and demand shall be carefully regulated. 
The consequence is that all over Europe a doc- 
tor is an honored man. In some places his 
diploma is considered as a patent of nobility. 
Alas ! how different in this land of isms. . . . 
The correct plan, it seems to me, is for the 
student not only to spend plenty of time, but 
also money, for that is the real touchstone to the 
value of everything in this world ; and then he 
will be in a condition to appreciate what has 
cost him so dearly. Not only that, the people 
will be taught, as they are in Europe, to respect 
a profession whose honors have to be won at 
so much cost and labor. I believe also that it 
is the plan by which we are to have good 
teachers. They must be paid so well that the 
most learned in the profession will be willing to 
devote their time and knowledge to teaching." 

In March, 1872, Dr. Weatherly delivered the 
Annual Oration before the Medical Association 
of the State of Alabama, at Huntsville, Ala., and 
chose for his subject " Woman : Her Rights and 
Wrongs," in the course of which he said: 

"The clamorers for women's rights demand 
12 



that she shall be placed upon an absolute equal- 
ity with man in every particular, enjoying all 
the privileges that he enjoys, doing the same 
work, and receiving therefore the same pay. 
But she must recollect that when she gets to 
doing man's work she must do it as well as he 
does it, or suffer the consequences. There is no 
chivalry in labor or commerce, and when she' 
enters the field as a rival to man, she must not 
object at receiving the same treatment as her 
male rivals. Whoever does the most and the best 
work must succeed. And if women do the same 
amount of work, and as well as men do it, of 
course they ought to receive the same pay. 
They must, however, submit to the same treat- 
ment, for they cannot be treated as men and 
women too. She must take her choice. . . . 
We will glance en passant at female suffrage as 
a means of redress for woman's wrongs. It is a 
question of vital importance, it seems to me, 
not only to women, but to men and govern- 
ments. It is something also which cannot be 
put aside by jests or sneers, but must be met 
sooner or later. How the agitation will end I 
cannot pretend to say. A few years ago the 
abolition of slavery had fewer advocates than 
the women suffrage has to-day. It was looked 
upon as an idle dream of fanatics and enthusi- 
asts, yet behold the result. It concerns the 
good and wise men and women of this country 
to ponder well the inquiry, Whither are we tend- 
ing? What effect will it have upon society 
when women abandon the care of hom-e and 
children for the jury-box and hustings? That 
women can vote as intelligently as most men, I 
have no doubt. That is not the fact that should 
startle us. It is, Will it be best for her to do so? 
Will it remedy any of the evils of which she 
complains? And, above all, will she be a more 
competent helpmate to man? Will she be a 
better instrument in the hands of God for the 
advancement of religion and morality? Will 
' Domestic happiness, the only bliss of Paradise 
that has survived the fall,' be increased? Will the 
country be moved forward in the path of great- 
ness and grandeur and purity more rapidly? 
Will men be better, or politicians more honest ? 



i 7 8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



These a - e grave questions, pregnant with good 
or evil to society. It is useless for us to close 
our eyes and say that this thing cannot be. . It 
may be long before we of the South have any 
experience with this trouble ; our women, thank 
God, are women still : 

" ' Soft as the memory of buried love, 

Pure as the prayer which childhood wafts above.' 

They have always kept aloof from the demoral- 
izing issues of the day, and I feel proud that I 
can say that our Southern women are the purest 
type of women upon the face of the globe. ' In 
that stillness which most becomes a woman, 
calm and holy,' the Southern woman 'sitteth 
by the fireside of the hearth, feeding its flame.' 
May she continue so to do, furnishing an ex- 
ample of woman's duty to her aspiring Northern 
sisters. I think the time has arrived for the 
real women of this country to arise and assert 
their rights. They are in great danger of suf- 
fering unknown evils from the work of their 
progressive sisters. I say, let them demand their 
rights and contend for the dear privilege of 
being women still. Let them not relinquish the 
claim of being justly designated the purest and 
best part of created things. . . . Woman's 
strength and safety is in her womanhood, and a 
true man will always respect it. Her great dan- 
ger is from herself. In her vain efforts to ape 
the ways of man, she is running the risk of de- 
moralizing both, for when men cease to treat 
and respect woman as woman, her moral influ- 
ence will be gone, and without her influence for 
the cause of religion and morality, sin would 
hold high carnival in the world, and all intellec- 
tual and moral advancement will be at an end. 
Men left to themselves, without the refining 
hand of woman, would soon degenerate into 
little less than brutes. And it is from this 
degradation, alike detrimental to both sexes, 
that I wish woman to save us. It will not do to 
say that we are too far advanced in civilization 
for anything of this sort to happen. No civiliza- 
tion is permanent if the moral part of humanity 
is not also educated and perfected. It is in this 
particular field that woman's work lies. There 



is plenty of work for her to do, and of the kind 
that is elevating and useful to both sexes. How 
much more benefit to suffering humanity was 
Florence Nightingale, acting the part of a gentle 
and ministering angel to the sick and wounded 
soldiers, than she would have been had she gone 
to them with probe and scalpel ! . . . Above 
all, we must teach them that the purity and well- 
being of the human race depends upon the kind 
of mothers from whom we draw our being. Let 
us strive to have woman elevated, educated and 
purified. Let her stand forth and claim the 
great right of educating and training her chil- 
dren for usefulness in this world, and immor- 
tality in the next." 

At the annual meeting of the American Medi- 
cal Association, held in Philadelphia, in 1872, 
Dr. Weatherly, as Chairman of the Committee 
on Medical Education, prepared a report in 
which he, after deploring the fact that the associa- 
tion had hitherto taken no steps to carry out the 
prominent idea which led to its formation — the 
improvement of medical education in this coun- 
try — recommends "that an appeal be addressed 
by this association to the different State authori- 
ties, advising that no more charters be granted 
to medical colleges which do not agree to adopt 
the plan of teaching which this association shall 
hereafter recommend as the guide for all medi- 
cal colleges in the Union. Further, that when 
institutions already chartered fail to adopt, or 
fall below the standard adopted and approved 
by this association, the State authorities (acting 
for the good of the people) shall cause a surren- 
der of the charters of all such institutions. And 
that the scheme of one or more national medi- 
cal colleges, as suggested and advocated by Dr. 
Baldwin in his presidential address, in 1869, is 
feasible and proper, and should be prosecuted to 
a successful issue. Such institutions would soon 
regulate medical teaching in this country, and 
there seems to be no good reason why they could 
not be organized in such a way as to be entirely 
free of all political bias." He also advocates a 
standard of education, and one for membership 
for the association, and suggests that a congress, 
composed of two members from each State and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



179 



Territory and one from each recognized medical 
college, all to be members of the association, be 
appointed to perfect a plan for some uniform 
system of medical teaching which, when adopted 
by the association, shall be the only recognized 
method of medical teaching in the United 
States. 

In May, 1872, the Rocky Mountain Medical 
Association was formed in Philadelphia, com- 
posed of the medical gentlemen, 123 in number, 
who had crossed the Rocky mountains in 1871 
to attend the meeting of the American Medical 
Association in San Francisco. Its purpose was 
solely social and memorial, and had its origin 
in a desire to perpetuate the friendships then 
formed among the physicians who formed the 
party; it was intended that so long as any mem- 
bers were living they should assemble annually 
at the time and place selected for the meeting 
of the American Medical Association, and con- 
tinue to do so until time should blot the organiza- 
tion from the page of history. Its first President 
was Dr. Washington L. Atlee, of Philadelphia, 
and then follow annually in succession Dr. B. H. 
Catlin, of Connecticut, Dr. G. W. Mears, of In- 
diana, Dr. B. Gillett, of Pennsylvania, Dr. J. M. 
Toner, of Washington, and Dr. N. S. Davis, of 
Chicago. The addresses of the presidents, with 
biographical sketches of the members, were col- 
lected together in a handsome memorial volume, 
which forms a pleasing and appropriate souvenir. 

In 1875 Dr. Weatherly, as President, delivered 
an able address before the Medical Association 
of the State of Alabama, of which 1,000 copies 
were printed at the expense of the association 
for general distribution. The State Legislature, 
with a wisdom and generosity far in advance of 
most State Legislatures, constituted that body 
the State Board of Health, and confided the 
Sanitary Department of the State government to 
its keeping, and Dr. Weatherly remarks : 

"If this association, acting as a Board of 
Health, cannot demonstrate to an intelligent 
community that its services are valuable and of 
the highest importance to its welfare, why then 
the quicker we abandon the project the better 
for all parties interested in it. My present im- 



pression is that we have the best ground-work 
for the establishment of a State Board of Health 
that has yet been projected by any of the States 
in the Union. But it has to be tested, and it is 
entirely in the hands of the medical men of the 
State. ... I hope and believe that we are des- 
tined to furnish a model for all of the States for 
the future formation of boards of health. If this 
should prove true, it will be another step taken 
toward placing our beloved State in the front 
rank of her sister States, on the road of progress 
and improvement. Let us do our part in show- 
ing to the world that we not only have the cli- 
mate, soil and mineral productions, but also that 
in all the departments of society Alabama can 
step boldly forward and challenge the best to 
competition, and that not the least of her great- 
ness consists in the wisdom and enterprise of her 
medical men. ... It is the business and the 
duty of the medical profession to teach and to 
form public opinion in all matters bearing upon 
sanitary science, and in fact upon all things of 
which the public is interested in regard to the 
science of medicine. . . . Diseases of all sorts 
come as consequences of violations of natural 
laws, and are punishments for such violations. 
But many people violate these laws from their 
ignorance, and suffer equally with those who 
violate knowingly. People are violating these 
natural laws every day, who would not do so 
any more than they would disobey civil laws, if 
they understood them. It is the duty of this 
association, through the State Board of Health, 
to teach the people some of these laws govern- 
ing diseases. . . . The great, and in my opinion 
the paramount, obstacle to the rapid improve- 
ment and prosperity of the State, is malaria, 
that subtle poison that has stolen the lives of so 
many valuable citizens from the fairest portion 
of the State during the last few years. It still 
has full sway; absolutely nothing is being done 
to check the progress of this insidious poison 
that is every day sapping the energies and taking 
the lives of our people. Now many will con- 
tend, probably, that malarial diseases do not 
come under the head of preventable. But his- 
tory will sustain me in saying that if malaria 



i So 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



cannot be entirely suppressed, its effects can in 
a great measure be gotten rid of by proper at- 
tention to drainage, cultivation, etc. And I 
contend that it is cheaper for us to fight and to 
throttle this great enemy to our lives and pros- 
perity than it is to yield an apathetic submission 
to its sway. ... I firmly believe that if a thor- 
ough system of drainage (and as a matter of 
course cultivation would follow) was put in 
force, the greater portion of our State that is af- 
flicted with this scourge would be made perfectly 
healthy. I am convinced that it would be wise 
policy and a real measure of economy for the 
State government to adopt some system looking 
to the gradual drainage of those portions of the 
State most subject to malarial influences. . . . 
The saving to the people of the money spent for 
quinine alone would probably pay for the work 
done. In the present impoverished condition 
of the individual citizen, my own opinion is that 
the government should take charge of this work. 
Something must be done, and this association 
should mature and recommend some feasible 
plan for the rescue of our citizens from this in- 
sidious poison. This done, no earthly influence 
can prevent Alabama from springing forward 
with the power of a young giant on the road to 
prosperity and happiness. We can then say, 
with confidence to the world, come to our State, 
and we will suit you in climate and soil, but 
above all other things in health. ... It may 
seem somewhat chimerical, even to physicians, 
at this time for any one to announce that the 
moral health of the world is to be improved, 
not only by the willing, but if necessary by the 
forcible observance of well-known physiological 
and sanitary laws. I firmly believe, however, that 
at some future time this will be the case. . . . 
Standing here to-day and casting a mental horo- 
scope of the remote future, with the far-reaching 
eye of imagination I can see our beloved art 
towering far above all other arts or callings. I 
see it enshrined in the hearts of all the people, 
and through its influence I see an evolution 
taking place almost as startling as that told us 
by Darwin of what took place in the first dawn 
of creation, when, according to his theory, 



man's first entrance upon the world's stage was 
nothing save a little bit of jelly. I see the phy- 
sical man grand in his proportions, almost ex- 
empt from bodily suffering, his mind wonder- 
fully strengthened and godlike in its percep- 
tions. Mysteries that have no solution for us 
of to-day, and to our feeble brains are utterly 
unknowable, will then be as plain as the sun- 
light dancing upon the mountain's snowy sum- 
mit. I can see him good and pure, made so by 
long observance of well-known sanitary laws 
that are now almost unknown and are totally 
unobserved by the people. This then is to be 
our mission. We are to be the instructors in 
this great branch of art, that is destined to do 
so much for the good of the human race. Our 
profession has been called holy and noble, and 
so it is; for its great business is to protect and 
prolong human life. The battle will no doubt 
be fierce and long, but truth and right will 
eventually prevail. The duty of the profession 
then is two-fold. It is to show how physical 
disease can be prevented or ameliorated, and 
also that a correct observance of certain laws, 
if applied to marriage, will prevent or at least 
diminish the amount of crime in the world. Is 
it too much to expect that in course of time 
some effectual means will be found of prevent- 
ing notoriously bad people from propagating 
their iniquities to posterity? If it cannot be 
accomplished by natural selections, why then, 
I say, let the strong arm of the law interfere. 
Better for the liberty, yea, even for the life of 
one individual to be sacrificed, than to have a 
dark and poisoned stream of vice and infamy 
slowly oozing its slimy way down the course of 
time, blighting and corrupting with the exhala- 
tion of its nauseous vapors everything that 
comes near it, until it loses itself in the vast sea 
of eternity. It is a question in sociology which 
must be considered and probably pondered over 
for a long time, before any definite action is 
taken. But we may cast the pebble to-day that 
will lash the waves of the moral ocean into bil- 
lows of improvement, that will break upon the 
pure sands of a new and regenerate world ages 
hence." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



j8i 



Since this address was delivered the State 
Board of Health of Michigan has adopted one 
of Dr. Weatherly's suggestions, and reclaimed 
millions of acres of land by drainage, and thus 
greatly improved the health of the people in the 
vicinity. The State Board of Health of Ala- 
bama consists of ten censors, chosen from the 
members of the Medical Association of the 
State, of which Drs. Cochran and Ketchum, of 
Mobile, and Drs. Weatherly and Gaston, of 
Montgomery, with many others, equally promi- 
nent, form part. In March, 1877, the distin- 
guished gynaecologist, Dr. J. Marion Sims, 
visited Montgomery, the scene of his earliest 
labors, after an absence of twenty-five years. 
He was welcomed to this city by a committee 
from the Medical and Surgical Society of Mont- 
gomery. A banquet was given in his honor, 
at which, in response to the toast of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association, Dr. Weatherly, as 
Senior Vice-President of that Association, spoke 
as follows : 

" Mr. President : While I feel that I am en- 
tirely incompetent to respond to the toast to 
the American Medical Association, yet I cannot 
refuse after having been called upon to do so 
by one of its distinguished ex-Presidents, though 
sure that he could have done the subject more 
ample justice than it is possible for me to do. 
As an Alabamian I could not, if I were so dis- 
posed, speak anything but good of that grand 
association, that has taken such especial pleas- 
ure in honoring the profession of this State, and 
particularly of this city. It was the first organ- 
ization after the war, having any pretensions to 
nationality, that, with rare good sense and fore- 
thought, recognized the true basis of reconcilia- 
tion between the North and South — a principle 
that, had it been adopted by politicians, would 
have long since brought peace to the country 
and consigned returning boards with all the 
other paraphernalia of an unholy war to the 
oblivion of the past, never more to be seen by 
the eyes of freemen. The principle of action 
adopted by the American Medical Association, 
was that the Doctors of the South were equal in 
every way to the Doctors of the North, and that 



the way to win them back to their allegiance 
was by kindness and fair dealing. I well recol- 
lect the first meeting after the war — I believe in 
1868 — at which the South was represented. 
Only six delegates from the whole South were 
present, and three of these were from Alabama. 
These, however, were received with open arms. 
The Southern delegates made excuses them- 
selves for the paucity of representation. They 
said that every Southern State would soon be 
represented. No questions were asked as to 
loyalty, except loyalty to the medical profes- 
sion. To still further show the good feeling 
and wisdom of this body at that very meeting, 
an Alabamian, one whom we all have delighted 
to honor, was chosen President, not, however, 
as an Alabamian, but as a representative of the 
whole South. This reminds me of a little scene 
at that same session, one that is most vividly 
impressed upon my mind. It was when the 
newly elected President appeared for the first 
time before the association, and in a few most 
eloquent and feeling remarks, struck a respon- 
sive chord in that large assembly, bringing tears 
to eyes unused to weep, and making every one 
feel that it was good to belong to an association 
that could make men forget and forgive the 
past, and feel that they were again brothers, 
working together for a common good. Since 
that time three vice-presidents have been selected 
from this city: and last, but not least, our dis- 
tinguished and honored guest, who was at one 
time a resident of this city, was its last Presi- 
dent. I, sir, have a most profound respect for 
this noble representative of the medical profes- 
sion of the United States. I went with it, an 
only delegate from the South, across the rugged 
and grand old Rocky mountains and the beau- 
tiful snow-clad Nevadas. I stood with its mem- 
bers upon the golden sands of the Pacific while . 
the glad waves, dashing through the Golden 
Gate, united in songs of welcome to a body that 
was willing to make any sacrifice for the pur- 
pose of uniting the profession of the whole 
country in fraternal bonds. I listened to the 
great representatives of the association as they 
responded to toasts drank with wines pressed 



l82 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



from the grape grown upon the soil of Califor- 
nia, whilst we sat under the far-spreading 
branches of the green oaks of the beautiful city 
of Oakland ; and I always feel sad when circum- 
stances compel me to miss one of its annual 
meetings. Some say the association has done 
no good, but I am sure that it has done and is 
still doing great good. There is a silent influ- 
ence that it exerts that, like the still small voice 
of conscience, is felt all over this broad land, 
and every day its power is increasing. But I 
have no time to tell what it has done ; only to 
say that, in my opinion, its work has just com- 
menced, and long after we have ceased to 
respond at its roll-call, and have been forgotten 
by our dearest friends, will this association still 
live to bind together and cherish all that is good 
and noble in American medicine." 

In April, 1877, he read before the Medical 
Association of the State of Alabama, a paper on 
Syphilis, in which he called the attention of the 
Board of Health to this subject as being of more 
importance to the profession and the people 
than any other one subject connected with 
medicine. He says : 

" I desire leave to ask this body to take into 
consideration the possibility and practicability 
of devising some means for the prevention of the 
spread of syphilis among the citizens of this 
State It will not do to say that the sub- 
ject is too delicate to be brought into public 
notice. Nothing that concerns the public and 
moral health of the people is too delicate to be 
thoroughly ventilated. I agree with Professor 
Gross in saying that it is high time that the peo- 
ple should be enlightened upon what is daily 
transpiring in their midst, and imperceptibly 
sapping the very foundations of society. And 
if no legislation on the subject is thought 
advisable, if the people are thoroughly informed 
upon the subject, much good will be accom- 
plished. I do not believe there is a man here 
to-day who would be willing for his daughter to 
marry a man who was affected with constitu- 
tional syphilis. . . . There is not one of you but 
knows that this one disease is productive of more 
misery, more suffering, and more sin than any 



other malady to which flesh is heir ; that from 
this disease, the most terrible curse, mentioned 
in the Bible — that the sins of the fathers should 
be visited upon the children even down to the 
third and fourth generation — received its most 
manifest proof. I go still further and say, that 
I doubt if this infection or poison once en- 
grafted upon the human system, ever does die 
out, and that there are people now suffering 
from the effects of this poison whose ancestors 
contracted the malady ages gone by. I doubt 
very much if constitutional syphilis is ever 
eradicated from a system once thoroughly poi- 
soned by it. And right here I wish to call espe- 
cial attention to one mode of communicating 
this poison. I mean by that most innocent and 
pleasant custom ladies have of kissing their 
friends. You must know that the smallest por- 
tion of this poison has only to be communicated 
to the minutest abraded surface and you can 
have a chancre. I have a case in my mind's 
eye now. . . . Many a venom, little suspected, 

may lurk in the kisses of real friends 

The idea has occasionally been advanced, that 
syphilis, like small-pox, measles and scarlatina, 
is a self-limited disease, tending in persons of a 
sound vigorous constitution to spontaneous cure; 
but such a view is certainly not borne out by 
the facts of the case. The disease, if left to 
itself, never wears itself out ; its character may 
be altered or modified, but the poison, like an 
enemy in ambush, still lurks in the system, 
ready to explode with full force upon the 
slightest deterioration of the general health. 
I have repeatedly witnessed cases in which the 
poison remained in a state of latency for ten, 
twenty, thirty and even forty years, the indi- 
vidual being apparently well all the time, when 
either gradually or suddenly, from some inter- 
current disease or accident, it broke out in some 
particular structure, tissue or organ of the body, 
perhaps selecting a spot hardly the size of a 
dime or twenty-five-cent piece for the theatre 
of its operation and the development of its 
zymotic action. ... It is not syphilis per se that 
we have to contend with, but many of the 
hereditary diseases owe their origin to this poi- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



183 



son. I have little doubt but scrofula and 
phthisis are direct descendants from this most 
loathsome parentage, and also many cases of 
rheumatism and likewise neuralgias. . . . Cer- 
tain it is that none of the preventable diseases 
are so horrible in their effects as this. In 
cholera, yellow fever, small-pox, etc., the vic- 
tim either dies or gets well, or, at least, as a 
general rule, is the only sufferer. But in this a 
black stream of venomous poison is let loose 
that travels down the course of time, tainting 
and blighting the blood, aye, and the intellects 
of untold descendants from the parent spring. 
The innocent yet nursed in the womb of time, 
together with those already here, are doomed to 
suffer from this awful curse, inflicted upon them 
by the vitiated constitutions of their ancestors. 
Many of the best writers and thinkers of the 
age are now satisfied of the connection between 
syphilis and consumption. . . . He or they who 
shall devise some -plan for the prevention and 
final eradication of this most gigantic evil, will 
have his or their names rung down the ever- 
lasting steps of time to the music of grateful 
hearts yet unborn. . . . The plan, whatever it 
is, could be carried out as soon as we have 
County Boards of Health organized over the 
State. The simple inspection of known prosti- 
tutes should not be enough, but every one, male 
and female, as soon as known to be suffering 
from syphilis, should be guarded or isolated in 
some way, so as to prevent the communication 
of the poison to others. . . . But you say, we 
would have no right to interfere with the per- 
sonal liberty of a citizen. Would the law have 
a right to stop a thief from entering your house, 
or an incendiary from burning your barn down? 
Yet your house can be rebuilt and your stolen 
goods replaced ; but who can bring back the 
smooth and beautiful skin of health to your 
daughters and sons who may have become in- 
fected with this poison ? You say that people 
will not submit ; but I firmly believe that, if the 
people were instructed properly upon this sub- 
ject, they would lead the doctors, and force 
some measure for their protection." 

During the terrible epidemic of yellow fever 



which prevailed in the Southwestern States in 
1878, much controversy took place on the sub- 
ject of quarantine, and the South Carolina 
Medical Society, having passed a series of reso- 
lutions, deprecating all attempts at inland quar- 
antine, Dr. Weatherly contributed a paper to 
the Montgomery Advertiser, reviewing the whole 
subject as follows : 

"In one of the Montgomery papers of a late 
date a lot of anti-quarantine resolutions from the 
South Carolina Medical Society was published. 
Their tone and substance astonished me greatly, 
as they are not in accord with the prevailing 
opinions of the thinking and reading medical 
men of the day, and the South Carolina doctors 
have been held to be the peers of any body of 
medical men in the land. The treatment of 
yellow fever has certainly not improved as much 
as could be desired, but no one can deny that 
much progress has been made within the last few 
years in the study of its etiology and habits. 
Many facts have been accumulated proving be- 
yond doubt that it is a. portable poison ; in other 
words, that the yellow fever germ is particulate, 
and can be carried from place to place in a 
variety of ways. The people have probably led 
the doctors in this matter, and as a consequence 
they clamor for strict quarantine when threat- 
ened with a visitation from this much-to-be 
dreaded disease. The first of these South Caro- 
lina resolutions is in condemnation of all at- 
tempts at inland quarantine. Why inland 
towns should not protect themselves from cer- 
tain destruction, if possible to do so, no reason 
is given, except on the score of humanity — and 
the humanity is placed upon the wrong side. 
One proven fact stands out against a multitude 
of unproven theories. The facts are that the 
towns and cities that have instituted rigid quar- 
antine have escaped the pestilence, while those 
where refugees from infected points have taken 
up their abode are suffering from this fearful 
disease. The second resolution is vague and 
broad. That people in the track of this epi- 
demic are panic-stricken may be true; it would 
be strange if it were not true. It might have 
saved hundreds of now desolate households if 



1 84 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



they had become panic-stricken early enough to 
have saved themselves by flight or quarantine. 
Is there anything wonderful in people becoming 
alarmed when an unseen enemy steals upon 
them, killing one-half, two-thirds, aye, in some 
places three-fourths of the victims attacked? 
Men may march to battle, cheered by the music 
of fife and drum, meeting death without fear or 
thought ; but when the monster meets them in 
an invisible form, striking them down without 
warning, giving them no chance to strike back, 
fear must take possession of them; nothing but 
stolidity could prevent it. As to the inhuman- 
ity of inland quarantine, I must say that human- 
ity like charity should begin at home. It might 
look inhuman, at the first glance, for a town to 
refuse a sick person entrance within its walls; 
but if that person is charged with the seeds .of 
an infectious disease, it would be inhuman to 
allow such person to enter a town, and infect 
hundreds of others with a deadly disease. It 
would be better to let the poor wanderer lie 
down and die, with only the blue sky above, 
than to allow thousands of good people to be- 
come poisoned by coming in contact with such 
infected person. Now, let us inquire what are 
the most generally received views as to the ori- 
gin and propagation of yellow fever. Accord- 
ing to my understanding of the most recent 
teachings on this subject by men who have 
studied the disease at the bedside, and are not 
theorists, these views are — 

" i. That yellow fever is not a native of the 
United States ; that it is exotic ; that there are 
certain localities in this country where, if the 
germs of yellow fever are carried, they multiply 
and grow with a wonderful rapidity. 

" 2. That these germs are portable, and can 
be carried from place to place, either in persons 
themselves, in railroad-cars, ships, boats, etc., 
and in fomites of various kinds. This being the 
case, common sense would suggest strict quaran- 
tine in all places where the germs would be 
likely to grow. Few physicians of the South- 
west believe that it ever originates in the United 
States. Even in New Orleans the almost uni- 
versal opinion is on the side of importation ; 



some believing, however, that the germs may 
live through a mild winter, and be revived by 
the heat of the following summer. In Mobile 
and Pensacola the opinion is almost unanimous 
in favor of its importation. It is a peculiar 
germ, and requires peculiar surroundings for its 
incubation and propagation. They grow and 
multiply best in a filthy soil, but we have yet to 
see proof that any amount of filth in this coun- 
try will produce the yellow fever germ. Charles- 
ton, I believe, is the only place in the United 
States that claims to be able to produce this 
terrible pestilence without the introduction of 
the germ from abroad. If Charleston wishes 
this honor, let her have it by all means. Now 
a few facts in regard to the present epidemic as 
bearing on the quarantine question. New Or- 
leans is undoubtedly responsible for this epi- 
demic. We first hear of it there in July, and 
very soon after hearing of the first cases we hear 
of New Orleans refugees going in all directions. 
Some places immediately institute quarantine 
against that unfortunate city ; others invite the 
refugees to accept of their hospitality. Very 
soon we hear of New Orleans refugees sickening 
and dying in various places that they have gone 
to. In a few days after we hear of an epidemic 
of yellow fever in these places, and always that 
the citizens first attacked were either in contact 
with the refugees or in the immediate neighbor- 
hood. Holly Springs, a beautiful and healthy 
village, invites refugees from infected districts. 
Now we hear of an epidemic of yellow fever 
there, and that the citizens are refugees thenv 
selves — at least those who are not sick. Mobile, 
Meridian, Selma, and Montgomery on this side, 
Galveston and Shreveport on the other side — 
all in the yellow fever zone — quarantined strict- 
ly, and thus far these places have escaped. It 
may be inhuman, but it would be hard to con- 
vince the people of these places of the fact. It 
is useless for some places to quarantine, for this 
germ, like other tropical plants, cannot live 
everywhere. It has to have peculiar surround- 
ings, of it cannot be propagated at all. There 
are plenty of towns and cities in the United 
States where the germs could not live if carried 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



1 35 



there. It would be useless for those places to 
quarantine. On the other hand, many other 
places only need the germ to be brought to them 
for the development of the disease. Now, if by 
close observation it can be determined what 
places are liable, and what are not, much of the 
hardship of inland quarantine will be removed ; 
for refugees could go direct to those places that 
are not liable to infection. If our seaport cities 
do not keep yellow fever out, then of course the 
interior towns must protect themselves ; and to 
do so effectually every person, and every other 
thing likely to hold a living germ, must be 
rigidly excluded. People who have to look 
upon their loved ones passing away like autumn- 
leaves falling in the forest must be excused if 
they can see no inhumanity in quarantine. The 
general government should be empowered to 
take charge of all quarantine regulations for our 
ports. Jf Congressmen had listened to common 
sense and reason last session, and passed the 
quarantine bill as originally introduced, this 
fearful visitation might in all probability have 
been avoided. But the effete idea of State rights 
so hampered their actions as to defeat the bill, 
and the people have the dear right left them of 
having yellow fever ad libitum. I am of opin- 
ion that yellow fever should never become 
epidemic in this country ; but it must be kept 
out of our coast cities, and the general govern- 
ment is the only agency having means and 
power sufficient to do this with certainty. Gen- 
eral Butler, if he never does any other good, 
certainly proved that yellow fever could be kept 
out of New Orleans by rigid quarantine. If it 
can be kept out of New Orleans, it can be ex- 
cluded from all of our ports. Out of three 
hundred and forty-nine epidemics in the United 
States, the evidence is complete of its importa- 
tion in two hundred and eighty of them ; of the 
remaining sixty-nine, probably little effort was 
made at the time to trace the importation from 
foreign ports." 

Dr. Weatherly is a member of the State Board 
of Health of Alabama and President of the 
Board of Health of Montgomery ; member of 
the American Medical Association, and its first 



Vice-President in 1871 ; member of the Medical 
Association of the State of Alabama, and its 
President in 1874; member of the Montgomery 
Medical and Surgical Society, and its President 
in 1869, 1870, and 1879; an honorary member 
of the California State Medical Society, and of 
the Gynaecological Society of Boston. He has 
contributed some valuable papers to the litera- 
ture of the profession, among which may be 
mentioned an article on Glossitis, 1853; on 
Puerperal Convulsions, in which he advocates 
chloroform in place of bleeding as hitherto pur- 
sued, 1857; an operation for Polypoid Tumor 
of the Uterus, and Diabetes and its treatment, 
both published in the New Orleans Journal of 
Medicine; on the Opium Habit, published in 
the Transactions of the Alabama State Associa- 
tion ; on Medical Education, a report as Chair- 
man of the Committee of the American Medical 
Association; Woman, her Rights and Wrongs, 
an oration before the Medical Association of 
the State of Alabama ; Hemorrhagic Malarial 
Fever, an address before the same body ; an 
address before the Medical Association of the 
State of Alabama and the State Board of Health, 
1875; Anatomy and Diseases of the Cervix 
Uteri ; and Syphilis and its Prevention by State 
Action, both read before the State Association. 
In Alabama — a State remarkable for distin- 
guished medical men — Dr. Weatherly ranks 
among the foremost in his profession. On his 
first settlement in Montgomery he acquired, 
with unusual rapidity, a large and responsible 
practice, and his popularity has since steadily 
increased, possessing as he does in an eminent 
degree the rare faculty of winning the warm 
personal attachment of his patients, as well as 
their confidence in his ability. Endowed with 
a clear logical mind and strong convictions, he 
possesses the courage of his opinions, and has 
always taken a prominent part in all that tended 
to the advancement and elevation of his profes- 
sion. He was one of the leading spirits in the 
reorganization of the State Medical Association, 
and has been active in shaping its policy; he 
has been its President, and is now one of its 
most influential members. He has also earnestly 



1 86 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



promoted the success of the Montgomery Medi- 
cal and Surgical Society, has filled its Presiden- 
tial chair for three terms, and has taken part 
freely in its discussions. He was one of the 
three delegates from Montgomery to the first 
annual meeting of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation at which Southern delegates attended 
after the close of the civil war, and the manly 
and conciliatory position he took on that occa- 
sion mainly contributed to the election of a 
Southern man to the Presidential chair, which 
was productive of such excellent results in re- 
storing harmony and good will throughout the 
profession in all sections of the country. He 
wields a facile pen, and has contributed many 
important papers to the literature of his profes- 
sion, his views on medical education and other 
cognate subjects having been received with much 
favor generally. He has displayed great energy 
in securing the passage of legislation establishing 
the State Board of Health, and took an active 
part in organizing the system of State medicine 
and the regulation of hygienic laws. Of refined 
and cultivated taste, and with social qualities of 
a high order, he is a great favorite in the highest 
circles in Montgomery, while his sterling quali- 
ties of head and heart have endeared him to a 
host of warm personal friends in all parts of the 
Union. He was married, September, 1852,10 
Miss Eliza G. Taliaferro, daughter of Colonel 
C. B. Taliaferro, nephew of ex-Governor Gil- 
mer, of Georgia. He has six children, all sons ; 
the eldest, Charles Taliaferro Weatherly, grad- 
uated at the Atlanta Medical College, and the 
second, James Meriwether Weatherly, is now a 
student at the Alabama State University at Tus- 
caloosa. 

G. W. WILLIAMS, ESQ. 

B „ South Carolina. 

el^EORGE WALTON WILLIAMS was 
born in Burke county, N. C, Decem- 
ber 19th, 1820. The Williams family 
are of Welsh descent, having emigrated 
c to America on account of religious per- 
secution, in 1799 Edward Williams, an enter- 




prising member of the family from Easton, 
Mass., came south and located near the head- 
waters of the Savannah river, where, having 
formed a partnership with Daniel Brown, a suc- 
cessful merchant, he soon afterwards married 
his daughter, Mary Brown, and, of their numer- 
ous children, George Walton Williams is the 
fourth and youngest son. In 1823 his father 
removed to Nacoochee Valley, Habersham 
county, Georgia, where he purchased a large 
tract of land, and here, in a region on the very 
borders of civilization and principally inhabited 
by Cherokee Indians, George's childhood and 
early youth were passed. His father was an 
excellent farmer, and through his exertions the 
fertile valley was soon brought into a high state 
of cultivation. The facilities for obtaining 
education were naturally very meagre at that 
time among the mountains of Georgia, but 
George made the best use of such as were 
afforded him. In order to encourage self-reli- 
ance and early habits of industry among his 
sons, his father, Major Williams, gave each of 
them a portion of land which he was to culti- 
vate after the regular farm work for the day was 
done, and from the proceeds of which he was 
expected to furnish himself with pocket-money. 
George's tract embraced an Indian mound 
famous in the traditions of the red men as the 
spot where Nacoochee, the Indian maiden, was 
buried, and one year when the country suffered 
from protracted drought, and his crop was 
threatened with utter ruin, he carried water at 
night from the Chattahoochee river to irrigate 
his land, and so secured an abundant crop — a 
striking example of early habits of industry, 
energy, and perseverance. In his fourteenth 
year his mother died, and home in consequence 
losing much of its attraction, he determined, 
being of an adventurous spirit, to try a wider 
sphere for his pent-up energies. His father, 
being opposed to his leaving home, offered him 
no facilities for his departure; but nothing 
daunted, George set forth in October, 1838, for 
Augusta, one hundred and fifty miles distant, 
with a purse but scantily filled, and, with the 
help of his own strong limbs and an occasional 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



187 



ride on a market wagon, arrived on the seventh 
day at his destination. He was fortunate in 
soon procuring a situation in Augusta with Mr. 
Daniel Hand, a shrewd wholesale grocer, receiv- 
ing for the first year the nominal salary of fifty 
dollars. His business talents and energy and 
his unquestionable integrity soon gained him 
the confidence of his employer, and his salary 
was before long increased to a thousand dollars 
"per annum. At the age of twenty-one he pur- 
chased the interest of one of his employers and 
became a partner in the firm of Hand & Wil- 
liams. A considerable portion of the trade of 
the firm had hitherto been devoted to spirituous 
liquors, but, having been taught from his earliest 
years the pernicious influence of such a traffic, 
he prevailed upon his partner to abandon wholly 
this branch of their business. So far from 
losing by this bold step, the profits of the firm 
were actually larger at the close of the year by 
$5,000 than those of the previous one. Mr. 
Williams remained in Augusta fourteen years, 
and pursued his mercantile career with such suc- 
cess that it was found expedient to enlarge the 
field of operations, and, having been for some 
years favorably impressed with the business 
capabilities of Charleston, visited that city in 
1852 for the purpose of establishing a house 
upon strictly temperance principles. It was not 
long before the sales of the Augusta and Charles- 
ton houses increased from $100,000 a year to 
$1,500,000, and the profits from $12,000 to 
$100,000 per annum, the business becoming one 
of the largest commercial enterprises in the 
South. In Charleston, Mr. Williams' intelli- 
gence, energy, business capacity, and sterling 
integrity were soon appreciated, and he became 
an Alderman of the city, holding in the Council 
the responsible position of Chairman of the 
Committee of Ways and Means, a Director of 
the Bank of South Carolina, a Director in two 
railroad companies, and the financial adviser of 
a host of friends, besides being ever ready to 
engage in all public works and enterprises which 
looked to the prosperity of his adopted city and 
State. 

At the outbreak of the war, in 1S61, Mr. 



Hand, the senior partner in the firm, who then 
resided in New York, retired from the firm ; but 
the Confederate Congress having, in the mean- 
time, passed an act confiscating the interest of 
persons residing in the North who might have 
funds invested in Southern houses, Mr. Hand's 
savings of a lifetime were in imminent danger 
of being swept away, and Mr. Williams' utmost 
energies were taxed to save a part, at least, of 
his friend's property. During the early part 
of the war Northern houses had furnished his 
firm with goods, knowing that there was no 
law in the Confederacy to enforce collections in 
their behalf, and trusting entirely to the honor 
of the firm for their security. To provide, 
therefore, for these debts he remitted the money 
to the Bank of Liverpool, and when the war 
terminated they were discharged in full, princi- 
pal and interest, notwithstanding that he was 
told that the notes could be bought in New 
York at fifty cents on the dollar. In 1S62, 
having been appointed by the State Legislature 
Chairman of the Free Market Board, and by the 
city of Charleston Manager of the Subsistence 
Store, he closed his business for the purpose of 
organizing these beneficent institutions for sup- 
plying the soldiers' families, and the poor of 
Charleston, with food, and through his untiring 
exertions thousands of the destitute and suffer- 
ing were relieved daily during the entire war. 
The day the city fell into the hands of the 
Federal soldiers, he issued from his own private 
residence, the dining-room of which he had 
converted into a subsistence store, rations to 
some 10,000 persons of all colors and grades, and 
so great was the press that he was compelled to 
barricade the doors and distribute the provisions 
from the windows. Through his appeal to the 
retiring Confederate General, he obtained a 
requisition for the supplies which had previously 
been doomed to the flames. On the landing of 
the Federal troops Mr. Williams secured their 
services to aid in extinguishing the fires in 
various parts of the city, caused by the burning 
of the cotton and the gun-boats, and, at his 
solicitation, guards were placed over the ware- 
houses and mills in which the provisions were 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



stored, and food enough was thus saved to 
feed 20,000 people for four months. It was 
not his intention at the close of the war to 
engage again in mercantile business, but to 
establish a bank; and in 1865 he proceeded to 
Washington for the purpose of procuring a 
charter for the First National Bank of Charles- 
ton ; before this was accomplished, however, he 
was almost compelled by the solicitations of old 
friends and customers to return to his old busi- 
ness, and his was the first Southern house to 
resume operations after the war. He at once 
commenced the erection of large cotton ware- 
houses in the "burnt district,", stocking his 
extensive stores in Hayne street with merchan- 
dise, besides opening a banking house, and so 
was soon more fully immersed in business than 
at any former period of his life. Twenty-five 
partners have been associated with him in busi- 
ness during his long mercantile career, many of 
them having been brought up from the humblest 
office grade. Some have retired with fortunes, 
and a large number revolve around him daily, 
owning him as the head and hand which move 
the vast and complicated machinery of so many 
interests. On the 2d of May, 1874, the house 
of George W. Williams & Co. celebrated their 
thirty-second anniversary, and the inauguration 
of the Carolina Savings Bank — of which Mr. 
Williams is the President — which promises to 
have a career as wonderfully prosperous as that 
of every other business enterprise launched under 
his auspices. The name of George W. Williams 
& Co., long before the war, had become as 
familiar as household words in the commercial 
history of Charleston, and the history of the 
house is a record of spotless probity, indomit- 
able energy, remarkable tact and success that 
has been as unvarying as it has been brilliant. 
On the occasion referred to. Mr. Williams 
delivered a stirring address, intended princi- 
pally for the young men, in which he made 
the proud assertion that "in varied business 
transactions, amounting in the aggregate to 
more than one hundred million dollars, our 
house had never failed to meet, to the hour, 
every pecuniary obligation, whether written 



or verbal." Addresses were also delivered by 
many of the leading professional and mercantile 
men of Charleston, and the entire entertain- 
ment, which lasted for five hours, was marked 
by the most elegant hospitality. The main 
establishment is in Hayne street, but the im- 
mense business of the firm requires the use of 
over a dozen large warehouses, and gives 
employment to a large clerical force, besides 
twenty drays and about one hundred colored 
laborers. The banking department of the firm 
increased so largely that in 1875 it was found 
necessary to secure larger premises, and accord- 
ingly, in May of that year, the handsome build- 
ing, No. 1 Broad street, was purchased, and the 
banking house removed there, where, with 
increased facilities for the transaction of busi- 
ness, it continues its prosperous career. Mr. 
Williams' confidence in the future of Charleston 
is evidenced by his large investments in real 
estate, cotton presses, and wharves, and by his 
magnificent mansion lately erected in Meet- 
ing street, unquestionably the handsomest and 
most complete private residence in the South. 
During Mr. Williams' absence in Europe, he 
made careful examination of many of the finest 
residences, and decided on the style of houses 
in southern Italy as peculiarly adapted to the 
climate of South Carolina. The style is classic, 
the supporting columns and general ornamenta- 
tion being of the Corinthian order. The main 
building, which is of South Carolina pressed 
brick, is three stories high, and contains twenty- 
four rooms. An observatory rises fifteen feet 
above the roof of the house, affording a magnifi- 
cent view of Charleston, its beautiful harbor, 
Forts Sumter and Moultrie, and the distant 
ocean, Charleston claiming the honor of being 
the only city from which the Atlantic ocean can 
be seen. The octagonal vestibule is wainscoted 
from floor to ceiling with walnut, inlaid witli 
white holly and ash, and elaborately frescoed, 
the floor being Mosaic laid with encaustic tiles 
in a dozen harmonious colors. The main hall, 
fourteen feet wide, is wainscoted with black 
walnut inlaid with white holly clover leaves, 
and the ceiling frescoed to represent the four 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



189 



seasons. The drawing-room, which is entered 
through a pair of walnut sliding doors, is a mag- 
nificent apartment, wainscoted in cherry, elabo- 
rately carved and ornamented, with Corinthian 
pilasters of solid cherry, the ceiling decorated 
with frescoes and mouldings. The dining-room 
is wainscoted in solid oak, with Gothic solid oak 
columns and carved capitals, the mantel being 
one piece of solid oak, elaborately carved and 
ornamented with ebony ; the ceiling is divided 
by oak beams into thirty-two divisions, each 
containing a plaster ornament representing 
plates of .fruits surrounded by elaborate frescoes. 
The grand old English staircase is of massive 
black walnut, and overhead a beautiful vaulted 
canopy of black walnut and Hungarian ash. 
The music and picture-gallery is lighted by a 
skylight twenty-seven feet high, the dome en- 
riched by ornamental panels and moulded and 
carved mullions, the wainscoting of walnut, in- 
laid with white holly, clover leaves and bird's- 
eye maple, and the floor inlaid parquetry of 
pine, cedar and walnut; the frescoing of the 
ceiling is rich and tasteful in the extreme. The 
ceilings throughout are constructed of a material 
composed of powdered stone, white sand, and 
lime in the place of plaster of paris, and pre- 
sents a surface as smooth and bright as a mirror, 
a peculiarity of which is that in every room 
throughout the house the moulding is entirely 
different, yet at the same time equal in beauty. 
In the rear of the music hall are four wrought- 
iron tanks, holding 2,500 gallons of water; hot 
and cold water are laid on at every floor, with 
electric bells and speaking-tubes, and every 
modern convenience and luxury. The garden 
is tastefully laid out and beautifully kept, and a 
large circular conservatory, lit with gas, with 
glass walls and ceiling, fifty feet in diameter, is 
a prominent object in the grounds, behind 
which are the ample stables, coach-house and 
other outhouses. 

Mr. Williams is now as actively engaged in 
business as at any former period of his life, su- 
perintending its various departments with the 
same activity and tireless energy, and his in- 
dustry, perseverance, self-reliance, tact and in- 



tegrity are strikingly evinced in all his transac- 
tions. He acts as it were by intuition, rarely 
stopping to reason, but reaching his conclusions 
by his first impulse; this is one of the secrets of 
his success: he loses no time in considering 
propositions, but decides at once what to do. 
He is in the best sense a self-made man, achiev- 
ing wealth and position with but few of the ad- 
ventitious aids of society; whose steady aim 
from the beginning, earnest prosecution of his 
purpose, unrelaxing and cheerful industry, native 
intelligence, pure character and stern integrity, 
seconded by a modest Christian faith and prac- 
tice, are a noble example for the young men of 
the South to emulate. He has allowed himself 
few seasons of repose or recreation, but has 
found time to visit Cuba, Canada, all portions 
of the United States, and has made the tour of 
Europe twice, publishing a series of letters which 
would do credit to a more practised pen, show- 
ing him to possess keen observing faculties and 
excellent powers of description, which have been 
collected into a handsome volume for private 
circulation. Business cares have not impaired 
his finer sensibilities and literature; the fine arts 
and horticulture find in him a devoted disciple 
and patron. 

Mr. Williams has married twice; first, in 1843, 
Louisa A. Wightman, sister of Bishop William M. 
Wightman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church; 
and second, in November, 1856, Martha Fort 
Porter, of Madison, Ga., a lady possessing rare 
qualities of heart, mind and person; they have 
two sons and two daughters. In the domestic 
circle Mr. Williams seems to change his nature; 
he is no longer the autocrat of the counting- 
room ; he is simply the tender husband, affec- 
tionate father and kind friend, solicitous for the 
happiness of all around him; here he cultivates 
a natural taste for flowers, music and the fine 
arts. His house is as well regulated as his 
counting-room — order prevails. He spends his 
summer months in his charming mountain 
home in the lovely valley of Nacoochee, Ga., 
and there enjoys a respite from the corroding 
business cares, amid the scenes of his childhood 
and in sight of his old home, which nestles under 



190 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




the cooling shadows of majestic Yonah. In this 
lovely section he has made large purchases of 
lands, and will make Nacoochee Valley and its 
surroundings as lovely to the eye and hand of 
art as it came to art beautiful from the hands 
of nature. 

HON. C. C. LANGDON. 

Alabama. 

'HARLES CARTER LANGDON was 
born, August 5th, 1S05, at Southing- 
ton, Conn. The Langdons are of 
English descent, four brothers of that 
name having come to this country in 
the latter half of the seventeenth century and 
settled in Connecticut ; and from them are de- 
scended all the different branches of the family 
now scattered throughout the Union. 

Captain Giles Langdon, the father of the 
subject of this sketch, took part in the latter 
portion of the Revolutionary war, being but six- 
teen years of age at its termination, and after- 
wards became a substantial Connecticut farmer, 
and was several times a member of the State 
Legislature. He married Sarah Carter, daughter 
of John Carter, farmer, of Southington, whose 
family is a very numerous one in Connecticut. 

Charles C. Langdon was raised on his father's 
farm, and early developed a great taste for agri- 
cultural pursuits. He received his early educa- 
tion in one of the New England common 
schools, and then entered the Episcopal Acad- 
emy at Cheshire, Conn., where he studied for 
two winters, working on the farm during the 
summer months. At fifteen years of age he 
commenced to prepare for college, but his weak 
eyes, which he had inherited from his mother, 
compelled him to abandon the idea. When 
sixteen years of age he commenced teaching in 
the district schools in the adjoining towns of 
New Britain and Southington, and continued 
during four winters, employing the rest of the 
year in farm duties. 

In the fall of 1S25, when twenty years of age, 
he left Connecticut for Alabama, under the care 
of his brother, Levi Langdon, eighteen years 



his senior, who established a dry goods house in 
Marion, Perry county, Ala., and acted as his 
clerk until 1S29, when he became a partner in 
the firm. He was a candidate for the Legisla- 
ture from Perry county both in 1832 and 1833, 
taking the stump as a strong supporter of the 
Union against the nullifiers. Exceedingly ani- 
mated contests ensued in both years, but his 
ticket was in each case defeated, though by very 
small majorities. In 1834 he went to Mobile 
and engaged in the cotton commission business 
with the Hon. Martin A. Lee, under the firm 
of Lee & Langdon, and continued a prosperous 
career until the financial crisis of 1836-37 com- 
pelled them, in company with the greater part 
of the commercial houses in Mobile, to close 
their doors. This failure swept away the whole 
of his property. 

In the spring of 1838 he was nominated for 
the Legislature by the first Whig convention 
that ever assembled in the State, and, although 
defeated, gained such reputation that his party 
purchased the Mobile Daily Adve?-tiser in Octo- 
ber of that year, and installed him as Editor. 
In the following year he was elected to the Leg- 
islature, then holding its sessions in Tuscaloosa, 
and was re-elected in 1840. In 1848 he was 
elected Mayor of Mobile, and, with the excep- 
tion of one year, was re-elected annually to that 
office until 1S55. The compromise measures 
of 1850 stirred the South to its utmost depths, 
and he was indefatigable both with voice and 
pen in advocating the Union cause against the 
doctrine of extreme Southern rights. In 185 1 
he was a candidate for Congress on this plat- 
form, then the living issue before the country, 
his opponent being Judge John Bragg ; one of 
the most exciting contests ever known in the 
South followed, but Mr. Langdon was defeated 
on that issue by some 1,700 majority. In 1853 
he disposed of the Advertiser, having for fifteen 
years edited it with remarkable ability and judg- 
ment, during the whole of the great controversy 
between the Whigs and the Democrats, advocat- 
ing the views of Clay, Webster, and the leaders 
of the Whig party, maintaining the inviolability 
of the Union and opposing secession with all the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



191 



power of his vigorous pen. He was again elected 
to the State Legislature for the session of 1S55- 
56. After retiring from the Advertiser he bough' 
a farm in the country, twenty-nine miles from 
Mobile, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, to 
follow his favorite pursuits of agriculture and 
horticulture, determining nev.-r to engage in 
politics again. During the period between 1852 
and i860, however, he wrote a good deal for 
that paper; and in i860, at the request of the 
Whig party, took charge of the political depart- 
ment of the Advertiser during the whole of that 
memorable and excited campaign. In i860 he 
took the stump in support of the Bell and 
Everett ticket for the Presidency, making hun- 
dreds of speeches all over the State on the 
Union-Whig platform. Becoming disgusted, 
however, with the overbearing spirit displayed 
by the North, and recognizing that the election 
of Abraham Lincoln on a purely sectional issue 
had rendered a rupture inevitable, he espoused 
the Confederate cause, as soon as the blow was 
struck, with all the ardor of his nature, and ex- 
erted his utmost energies towards its success. 
During the war he wrote largely for the Mobile 
Register, discussing the financial question and 
other important issues of the day, and was un- 
tiring in his efforts to sustain the Confederate 
Government, its credit and the cause until the 
close of the war. 

In 1862-63 he represented Mobile in the State 
Legislature. In 1865 he was a delegate to the 
Constitutional Convention under President 
Johnson's plan of reconstruction, and was a 
member of the committee that drafted the con- 
stitution. After the convention adjourned an 
election was held, and without the slightest ex- 
ertion on his part he was elected to Congress 
'over Major S. B. Cleveland and Mr. T. M. 
Mathews, receiving double the number of votes 
polled by the two combined. He went to 
Washington with the rest of the delegation, but 
was not allowed to take his seat. He spent the 
winter there waiting the turn of events, all the 
delegates having left with the exception of Ran- 
dall Hunt, of Louisiana, Judge Sharkey, of Mis- 
sissippi, and himself. President Johnson was 



anxious that some Southern representatives 
should stay in Washington, so that they might 
keep the President advised of .the views and 
feelings of the South, and by express desire he 
visited the White House almost daily, although 
the course taken by the party in power rendered 
it impossible for him to accomplish any result. 
Before leaving the capital he published in the 
National Intelligencer an exhaustive vindication 
of the action taken by the South, and its inten- 
tion to accept the situation in good faith. After 
spending the winter fruitlessly in Washington 
he returned to Mobile, and in 1866 was a dele- 
gate to the "Johnson" Convention, held in 
Philadelphia, which, however, proved a failure. 
From there he went to New York, and spoke, 
by invitation, at Brooklyn. 

In 1868 he was a delegate to the National 
Democratic Convention, held at New York, 
which nominated Seymour and Blair, and was 
subsequently appointed by the Democratic Com- 
mittee at Mobile to deliver a series of speeches 
in the principal cities of the North and West, 
showing that the South was true to the Union 
and accepted the situation in good faith, and 
vindicating its fidelity and sincerity of purpose. 
He visited Chicago, Cincinnati and New York, 
making a few speeches, but the Northern Demo- 
crats thought the plan impolitic and it was 
abandoned, and he returned to Mobile. From 
that time he has been largely engaged in agri- 
culture and horticulture, for which he always had 
a strong predilection, and has used his best 
endeavors to introduce into his section a more 
scientific system of agriculture than used to 
obtain, and one better adapted to the changed 
condition of the South and the present wants 
of its people. 

In 1872 he was a candidate before the Demo- 
cratic Convention for Governor, but Colonel 
Herndon obtained the nomination, and in the 
election which followed, Judge D. P. Lewis, the 
Republican nominee, was elected. For several 
years after the war he was the Agricultural Edi- 
tor of the Mobile Register, from which he re- 
tired in 1872 to establish the Rural Alabamian, 
a Southern magazine of progressive agriculture 



102 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



and improved industry. He was editor of this 
periodical during 1872 and 1873, contributing 
largely to its columns from his own long and 
varied experience. In 1874 he was a candidate 
for Congress, for the State at large, before the 
Democratic Convention, the other candidates 
being B. B. Lewis, General Forney and Colonel 
Barnes. Lewis was first nominated, while for 
the second nomination a prolonged struggle 
ensued between the other three candidates, in 
which, for several ballots, Mr. Langdon received 
a clear majority, but failing to receive the 
requisite two-thirds the Convention finally 
nominated General Forney. In 1875 ^ e was a 
delegate to the Constitutional Convention 
which adopted the present Constitution of Ala- 
bama, in which he was Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Corporations. In the fall of 1877 
he delivered an address at Lindon, Marengo 
county. 

In 1878 his name was presented for Governor 
of Alabama ; he made no canvass, and took no 
part in the campaign, never even writing a let- 
ter ; the contest, however, was a very close one, 
and the present incumbent, R. W. Cobb, was 
nominated by a small majority only. Mr. 
Langdon then withdrew and afterwards entered 
heartily into the support of the nominee. 

Mr. Langdon has been President of the Agri- 
cultural, Mechanical and Horticultural Associa- 
tion of Mobile since its organization in 1873, 
and has taken an active part in progressive agri- 
culture and industrial advancement. Although 
the association is a local one, the whole State 
takes deep interest in its success, and visitors 
attend its fairs from all parts of Alabama and 
the adjoining States, and it is rapidly becoming 
a very important institution. 

He has been repeatedly called upon to de- 
liver addresses before different Agricultural Col- 
leges, and at the various agricultural fairs in 
Alabama and Mississippi. He has among many 
others delivered addresses before the Agricultu- 
ral College at Starksville, Miss. ; the Agricultu- 
ral and Mechanical College, at Auburn, Ala. ; 
and the Agricultural Fairs, at Eutaw, Selma, 
Eufaula, Camden and Linden, Ala. As an ex- 



ample of Mr. Langdon's intimate and practical 
acquaintance with the agricultural requirements 
of the South, we make the following extracts 
from an admirable address on the "Wants of 
Southern Agriculture," delivered by him at the 
Fair Grounds of the Agricultural and Mechani- 
cal Association of West Alabama, at Eutaw, 
Ala., in October, 1872. The well-matured 
opinions and common-sense propositions enunci- 
ated therein, have in the main as practical a 
bearing on the material interests of his section 
at the present time, as they had at the time they 
were delivered : 

"While I am not insensible to the impor- 
tance of extending all encouragement to other 
useful industries, yet as agriculture is the uni- 
versally acknowledged basis of individual and 
national prosperity, I maintain that in our 
present prostrate condition, the interests of 
agriculture claim the first consideration at our 
hands. Agriculture was the first employment 
of man upon earth. Other industries sprung 
into life in obedience to the demands of agri- 
culture, and have ever been subservient to its 
purposes and dependent upon it for their exist- 
ence. Manufactures, commerce and the arts 
are but the handmaids of agriculture. Manu- 
factures can but modify the products of hus- 
bandry, commerce but distribute and exchange 
them for our convenience and gratification ; but 
it is from the soil, through the medium of agri- 
cultural operations, that man procures subsist- 
ence for himself, as well as for those animals so 
necessary to an advanced state of civilization. 
Therefore, with these facts in view, can we not. 
say in truth that this pursuit lies not only at the 
basis of our prosperity as a nation but moreover 
at the very foundation of our existence? As 
such, then, it is the starting-point, the constant 
reliance and the unending source of a nation's 
wealth. By its progress from the earliest times 
to the present, it furnishes the history of the 
advancement of mankind from the savage to the 
civilized state. As it has been nourished and 
encouraged nations have flourished ; as it has 
been neglected and oppressed th:y have fallen. 
Of this alone can it be said ' that in peace it 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



193 



founds nations, in war it supports them.' .... 
The people of the South, at the close of the 
war, found themselves bereft of everything ex- 
cept their lands. Their millions of property in 
slaves destroyed ; their horses, mules and house- 
hold treasures stolen ; their homes, fences and 
implements of husbandry consumed by flames, 
and the whole face of the earth reduced to deso- 
lation — without money, and in many instances 
without bread, their condition would have been 
hopeless indeed but for their lands, of which the 
war demon could not deprive them. And, bet- 
ter still, they had left to them strong hands to 
work their lands and stout hearts to strengthen 
their hands. And thus provided, with head 
erect and soul unsubdued, they went bravely to 
wcik for their own support and for the restora- 
tion of a ruined country. The lands of the 
South, through the agency of which these re- 
sults were to be accomplished, had been in con- 
stant cultivation in cotton and corn for thirty, 
forty or fifty years, and had, in a measure, 
ceased to be productive. This was especially 
the case in this and the older States of the South. 
But these lands were the only resource left to 
our people. They had not the means to pur- 
chase new lands nor to emigrate, nor to hire 
labor. And in this very condition of helpless- 
ness originated that system of improved culture 
which is destined to regenerate the South. In 
cultivating this exhausted soil, it became neces- 
sary to economize labor and produce the largest 
possible crops on the smallest possible area of 
land and with the least possible labor. This 
again suggested the necessity of abandoning the 
former slave labor system of scratching over a 
large area of land to make, at best, but a small 
crop, and of adopting in its stead deep plow- 
ing and high culture. And the progress that 
has been made since the inauguration of this 
system has been most wonderful. Under its 
influence, the advancement of Southern pros- 
perity, even under the blighting effects of cruel 
legislation, military and carpet-bag rule, has no 
parallel in the history of the world. These re- 
sults have incited inquiry and study and thought, 
as to the best means of still further improving 
13 



our lands, with the view of producing still larger 
crops on still less land and with still less labor. 
And here is the key-note to Southern regenera- 
tion. Southern independence and Southern great- 
ness. . . . The first great want of Southern agri- 
culture is a system of culture that will restore 
the fertility of our worn-out lands — a system 
that will increase the production of the soil and 
at the same time increase its productive capacity. 
. . . It is an undeniable truth that our system of 
planting in the past has exhausted the soil of 
most of the essential elements on which crops 
feed, on even the best ■ lands of the South. 
There are thousands of acres in what is termed 
the ' cotton belt ' in this State (Alabama), ex- 
tending from the counties of Barbour and Rus- 
sell, on the east, to Sumter on the west, in- 
cluding the counties of Macon, Montgomery, 
Lowndes, Dallas, Perry, Wilcox, Marengo, Hale 
and Greene, with soils originally of matchless 
fertility, that have been cultivated continuously 
in cotton and corn from thirty to fifty years. 
The plowing — or rather scratching, for it cannot 
be called plowing — has been done by a single 
mule attached to the rude old barshear plow 
and wooden mold-board, that could not be 
made to penetrate the soil to a greater depth 
than three or four inches, the crop taken off, the 
cotton hauled to the gin-house and ginned, the 
lint sent to market, and the seed — that all- 
important element of fertility — left in a huge 
pile near the gin-house to rot and ' waste its 
sweetness on the desert air ' — and nothing ever 
returned to the soil. Such has been the pro- 
cess. These lands in their primitive state were 
the best cotton-lands in the world, producing, 
I imagine, on an average, at least a bale of cot- 
ton to the acre ; but this perpetual cropping 
with the same crop for half a century — con- 
stantly drawing from the soil and returning 
nothing to it — has exhausted it of all the essen- 
tial elements which enter into the composition 
of the plant, and the lands are now compara- 
tively worn out — producing, I suppose, about 
one bale to four or five acres. And although 
we have instances, I am gratified to know, of 
the adoption of an improved system of culture, 



194 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



by which much larger crops are produced, yet I 
think that even now the average production of 
cotton in the South does not exceed the amount 
I have named. And I am confirmed in this 
view by a report recently published of the pro- 
ducts of Mississippi for the year 187 1, which 
shows the following results : — out of sixty-eight 
counties the average yield in three was 450 
pounds of lint cotton per acre ; in three, 400 
pounds ; in nine, 250 ; in ten, 200 ; while in 
the remaining forty counties it was from 175 
down to less than 100 pounds to the acre. 
The average yield of corn throughout the State 
was fifteen bushels to the acre, oats the same, 
and wheat only nine bushels. And I imagine 
that of the cotton States, Mississippi is more 
than an average in point of productiveness. 
Now it is very evident that this kind of farming, 
under our present hired labor system, will not 
pay. We cannot afford to hire labor to culti- 
vate poor land. It may have been tolerated 
under our former slave system, when labor was 
cheap, costing nothing more than the food and 
clothing; but in the present condition of the 
South a different system must be adopted — a 
system that will bring us larger crops on less 
land, and with less labor — a system that will 
make twenty acres yield as much as a hundred 
do now. The saving in labor alone would 
doubly compensate for all the extra expense 
attending high cultivation ; and besides the land 
would be constantly improving. Instead of 
cultivating five acres for one bale of cotton, we 
must so enrich and so cultivate the soil that the 
same amount will be produced from one acre. 
Three, four, and even five bales have been made 
to the acre, and we have the right to assume 
that what has been done once can be done 
again. Instead of ten to fifteen bushels of corn 
we should make fifty, seventy-five, or a hundred 
bushels to the acre. Two hundred bushels have 
been produced here in the South. How have 
these results been accomplished? By the sim- 
plest process imaginable, to wit: Jeep plowing, 
thorough pulverization of the soil, and heavy 
manuring. ... I venture the assertion that in 
good fertile soil that has been thoroughly and 



closely plowed, and the ground completely pul- 
verized to the depth of two feet, the crop will 
not suffer from any drouth we ever have in this 
climate. In a soil thus prepared, the roots not 
only descend without obstruction to a depth 
sufficient to be beyond the reach of the burning 
atmosphere, but the moisture from below is raised 
to the roots by capillary attraction in time of 
drouth, while in seasons of too much rain the 
water is made to sink below the roots by the 
attraction of gravitation. . . . Every year we 
hear of complaints of injury or destruction of 
crops by drouth. 

"It is time for the intelligent farmers of the 
South to understand that ail this is the result of 
a defective system of culture, and that it is en- 
tirely within their power to guard against any 
such calamity. Examples are numerous of the 
entire success of the system, and it is founded 
in reason and sound philosophy. . . . Diversity 
of products is one of the most pressing wants of 
Southern agriculture. The experience of the 
last six years, it appears to me, ought to have 
convinced every planter that the practice of 
planting only cotton was very bad policy, and 
ought to be abandoned. The system of labor 
which brought the all-cotton policy into exist- 
ence, and by which alone it could be made 
profitable, has been overthrown ; but still all- 
cotton is the ruling passion with a large portion 
of Southern planters, notwithstanding the failure 
of all attempts to make it profitable, on poor 
lands, with hired labor. With some honorable 
exceptions, the policy is persisted in, and year 
after year the entire proceeds of the crop are 
spent in the purchase of the necessaries of life 
and in paying for hired labor. Of the $300,- 
000,000 cotton crop, it is estimated $295, 000,- 
000 goes to hired laborers, Western farmers, 
Northern and European manufacturers, mer- 
chants, bankers and middle men, leaving only 
$5,000,000 to be distributed among the pro- 
ducers. Surely a system so utterly ruinous 
should not be persisted in for a single moment 
— especially when another system which will 
certainly save this vast expenditure, and is en- 
tirely practicable, is presented. . That system is; 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



195 



diversity of farm products. Instead of growing 
all cotton, we must raise more corn, wheat and 
oats ; cease buying breadstuffs for family use and 
grain to feed our stock. We must cultivate 
clover and the grasses, and raise our own horses, 
mules, cattle, sheep and hogs. Plant orchards 
and vineyards, and grow our own fruits and 
make our own wine. In short, plant of every- 
thing needed for home consumption, in the 
greatest abundance, and some to spare, and then 
plant all the cotton possible. The cotton crop 
will then be all profit, and if the system of high 
culture, which I have recommended, be adopted, 
as much cotton will be produced as now, besides 
growing all the necessaries of life. The true 
policy is to make the land very rich ; cultivate 
no more than you can cultivate well, and ma- 
nure heavily ; make enough, and some little 
surplus for market, of all the necessaries of life, 
and then grow all you can of cotton. But more 
important than all — work yourself and teach 
your boys to work, and dispense with hired 
labor as far as possible. . . . Southern agricul- 
ture wants intelligent labor — not degraded labor 
drawn from the purlieus and prisons of Europe, 
nor barbarian labor from Asia ; but honest, 
sturdy and intelligent white labor, that will 
permanently identify itself with the country, 
that will help to develop its vast treasures, in- 
crease its wealth, and promote its moral, social, 
political and intellectual greatness. Above all, 
it wants the labor of our own people. It de- 
mands that labor be made respectable, honor- 
able and attractive, that the youth of our coun- 
try be educated to know and feel that honest 
labor riot only ensures happiness, contentment, 
independence and prosperity, but that it is the 
surest passport to honorable distinction and 
fame. It also wants educated farmers — men 
capable of bringing science to the aid of prac- 
tical experience in all farming operations. It 
has been truly said : ' Knowledge is not only a 
substitute for manual toil on the plantation, but 
a substitute that elevates and ennobles man. 
Without science agriculture is a slavish calling; 
but with science the farmer is independent and 
happy, for he keeps out of debt, and lives and 



shines among the stars.' An entire and radical 
change in the educational system of the South 
is imperatively demanded — a change which will 
recognize the necessity of educating our sons 
for the farm as well as for the learned profes- 
sions. And hence, the importance of sustain- 
ing and building up our agricultural colleges ( 
and other institutions that have for their object 
the education of our youth for a successful pros- 
ecution of the noble and ennobling pursuit of 
agriculture. Another want is agricultural legis- 
lation — legislation with a view not only to the 
advancement of the great cause of agriculture, 
but especially to protect the farming interest 
from the monstrous legislative impositions prac- 
tised upon it, through the corrupt influences of 
railroad and other ' rings ' in the halls of 
Congress and of the State Legislatures. I have 
not time to specify the numerous subjects con- 
nected with the interests of the farmer that 
demand the attention of our law-makers. Suf- 
fice it now to say, that every other interest 
receives the fostering care and protection of the 
government, while the great farming interest — 
numbering two-thirds of our entire population — 
is recognized only to 'foot the bills.' But 
the remedy, farmers of the South, is in your 
hands. You have the numbers to control the 
legislation of the country, and your power shall 
be exercised for the protection of yourselves and 
your great calling. Elect more farmers, and 
fewer lawyers, merchants and railroad men to 
make the laws. Combination with a view to 
energetic and concerted action is another want. 
We want more agricultural societies and clubs, 
where farmers can meet together, interchange 
views, compare notes, relate experience, report 
experiments, etc. No more efficient agents can 
be devised for the advancement of Southern 
agriculture. Every county should have its ag- 
ricultural society, and every neighborhood its 
agricultural club. And finally, live men are 
wanted — thinking men — men of energy, intelli- 
gence and vim, to take the lead in the great 
work of practical agricultural improvement; to 
show what can be done, and by their example 
induce others to ' go and do likewise ' — live 



196 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



men are wanted to go forth among the people 
and arouse them to the vital importance of 
building up the great agricultural interest of the 
South, and impress on their minds a sense of the 
beauty and dignity of their noble calling. . . . 
Let a system of agriculture be perfected that 
will cause the soil to produce to its utmost 
capacity, and the foundation will have been laid 
for permanent prosperity. Then will manufac- 
tures and commerce — the handmaids of agricul- 
ture — and all other useful industries spring into 
existence, and moving forward harmoniously 
together, each aiding and sustaining the other, 
there will be built up, here in our dear Southern 
land, the richest, noblest and greatest country, 
and the happiest, most independent and pros- 
perous people on which the sun ever shone. ' ' 

At a meeting of the Industrial Convention 
of Alabama, held at Blount Springs, Ala., Sept. 
6th, 1877, Mr. Langdon read a paper on the 
"Adaptation of the Climate and Soil of Alabama 
to Fruit Culture." In giving the result of his 
long experience on an industry that is destined 
at no distant day to become a most important 
one in Alabama, he said : 

" I may be permitted to express my firm con- 
viction, founded on over twenty years of active 
experience, and a lifetime (by no means short) 
of observation, study and thought, that there is 
no State in the Union, and no country in the 
world, where the climate and soil are more per- 
fectly adapted to fruit culture generally, than 
here in our own State of Alabama ; none where 
all the leading fruits of a temperate climate can 
be grown with more certainty, or to greater per- 
fection ; that the apple, peach, pear, grape and 
many other fruits of minor importance, can be 
grown here as successfully as in the Northern 
States ; while we have the advantage of that sec- 
tion in being able to produce to perfection sev- 
eral varieties and species of great value that fail 
entirely in more northern latitudes. Among 
these may be mentioned as specially prominent, 
our famous scuppernong grape — destined, at no 
distant day, to be ' a mine of wealth' to the 
South — and several of the semi-tropical fruits, 
among which may be specially mentioned the 



Fig and the Orange — the former being perfectly 
at home throughout the entire southern half of 
our State, and the latter finding a congenial cli- 
mate and soil all along the shores of our beauti- 
ful Gulf. With these exclusive privileges and 
these advantages over other sections of our 
country, fruit culture ought and might be made 
to be one of the leading industries of Alabama. 
And I feel assured there is no single industry 
that can be prosecuted to greater advantage or 
with more certainty of success; none that, com- 
pared with the results susceptible of attainment, 
requires so little labor and so little capital ; none 
capable of yielding so large a percentage of 
profit on the capital invested." After point- 
ing out some of the most prominent errors, 
practical and theoretical, connected with the 
culture of fruit, such as that of selecting poor 
land for the orchard; the failure to give the or- 
chard proper and unremitting attention, both 
before and after planting; omitting to take 
proper and timely measures against the attacks 
of insects, etc., he proceeds to discuss the uses 
and commercial value of a few of the leading 
fruits. "Although the apple cannot perhaps be 
made so profitable for shipment as some other 
fruits, still there is no fruit of greater intrinsic 
value. As an article of food, it is the most nu- 
tritious of all fruits, and much more so than the 
Irish potato, which enters so largely into the 
food consumption of this and other countries. 
The varieties of apples grown in the North and 
West always fail in the South, but if Southern 
seedlings, of which there is an abundance, equal 
in quality to any of the Northern kinds, are 
planted, apples in perfection can be had the 
year round. By a strict observance of the ne- 
cessary rules and precautions, apples can be 
grown as successfully in Alabama as in any other 
State in the Union. Thousands of dollars a 
year are at present sent out of the State for this 
fruit which can be produced there as abundantly 
and cheaply as in any country in the world. 
The peach is nowhere on the earth more perfectly 
at home than in Alabama, and peach-growing is 
destined soon to become one of the most im- 
portant industries in that State. It ripens a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



197 



month or six weeks earlier than in the West or 
North, and consequently finds a ready and pro- 
fitable market in the principal cities. Shipment 
of peaches can commence the last week in May, 
and be continued, with different varieties in 
succession, to the middle of July. One fruit- 
grower in Mobile county, Ala., in the season of 
1877, shipped to St. Louis alone, between the 
last of May and the 20th of July, some 6,000 
boxes of peaches, on which he realized in cash, 
after deducting all transportation charges and 
commissions, a clear profit of $5,000. Of the 
pear there are few varieties, comparatively, that 
succeed in Alabama, but those that do succeed 
are superior in every respect to the same varie- 
ties grown in the North. The fruit is larger, 
higher flavored, and of deeper and more brilliant 
colors. By planting only such varieties as have 
been tested and known to succeed, the pear is 
the most certain fruit crop that can be grown in 
Alabama — being less subject to insect attack, 
and less liable to injury by spring frosts. The 
Bartlett pear, among the noblest varieties of the 
fruit, succeeds to perfection throughout the 
State. It can be grown and shipped to the 
North a month in advance of its time of ripen- 
ing there, and can be sold in any quantities at a 
handsome profit. The fig can be grown in any 
quantity and to the greatest perfection through- 
out Southern Alabama. The plum, of improved 
varieties of the native Chickasaw type, succeeds 
admirably. The oranges grown on the Gulf 
coast of Alabama are admitted to be amongst the 
finest in the world, fully equal to those grown in 
the most favored region of Florida, and far 
superior to those from Cuba or Sicily. The crop 
seldom fails, the yield is wonderful, and always 
finds a ready sale at good prices. ' ' Mr. Langdon 
concludes his paper with a stirring appeal to the 
sons of Alabama to go to work earnestly and 
with a will, and aid in bringing forth and utili- 
zing the vast resources which the God of Nature 
has placed at their command. 

Mr. Langdon is a Trustee of the Agricultural 
and Mechanical College at Auburn, Ala. He 
was married in August, 1829, to Eliza Moore, 
daughter of Roswell Moore, a wealthy farmer of 



high character and prominent position in South- 
ington, Conn., who represented Southington in 
the State Legislature for many years. He has 
had five children, all of whom are now dead. 
A son, named C. C. Langdon after his father, who 
lived to be twenty-eight years of age, died, since 
the war, of consumption, acquired from expo- 
sure during his service in the Confederate army. 



JOHN S. DAVIDSON, ESQ. 

Georgia. 

' OHN SHELTON DAVIDSON was born 
at Augusta, Ga., June 17th, 1846, and 
is the son of William Dean Davidson, 
merchant, of Augusta, and Eleanor P. 
Treat, daughter of Isaac Treat, of Con- 
necticut. It is soniewhat remarkable that both 
on his father's and mother's side he traces his 
ancestry back to Governor Robert Treat, of 
Connecticut, whose family, of Scotch-Irish ex- 
traction, came over to America about 1636 and 
settled first in Vermont and afterwards in Mil- 
ford, Conn. Governor Treat was a man of 
remarkable ability, and. took a prominent part 
in the early affairs of the colonies. He was at 
first a planter, and afterwards became, succes- 
sively, Chief Military Officer, Judge, Deputy- 
Governor, and Governor, and was peculiarly 
fitted by his birth and connections for the dis- 
charge of those important trusts. His father 
having been for many years an honored member 
of the Connecticut Colony, and a patentee at 
the especial request of Connecticut on the new 
charter, Robert Treat had many opportunities 
of acquiring a knowledge of the wants and 
necessities of the people. In the controversies 
between the two colonies of Connecticut and 
New Haven, which finally resulted in their 
union, he rendered important services. Hear- 
ing that New Jersey offered facilities for estab- 
lishing their peculiar form of mixed ecclesiastical 
and political government, he journeyed, with a 
few others, to that State in 1666 and selected as 
a site for a town that which Newark now occu- 
pies. Having successfully concluded its pur- 



198 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



chase from the Indians, he was offered his choice 
in the selection of his land. He was elected to 
the General Assembly, or Colonial Legislature, 
from Newark from 1667 to 1672, and then re- 
turned to Connecticut, leaving several of his 
children in Newark, from one of whom Isaac 
Treat, the maternal grandfather of John S. 
Davidson, was descended, and from another, 
by intermarriage, William Davidson, his pater- 
nal grandfather. On Robert Treat's return to 
Connecticut he was chosen to command the 
forces of the New Haven colony in anticipation 
of a conflict with the Dutch ; the peace of 1673, 
however, removed that apprehension. In 1675 
he was employed in reconciling the disputes in 
which Sir Edmund Andross was involved ; and 
from 1670 to 1700 there was scarcely an estate 
of consequence in Milford, Conn., which was 
settled without reference to him. In September, 
1675, he was commissioned Commander-in- 
Chief of the Connecticut troops in the Indian 
war with King Philip ; he saved the town of 
Springfield, Mass., from utter destruction, and, 
by his defeat of the Indians, put a stop to the 
war for a time. A short time, subsequently, by 
a hurried march with his forces, he turned the 
defeat of Hadley into a victory, and •inflicted 
such loss on the Indians as practically to end 
the war in that part of the country. In the war 
in Rhode Island with the Narragansetts, Major 
Treat, by his gallantry and forethought, cap- 
tured the fort, and afterwards continued to 
render efficient service until the Indians were 
finally defeated. At the close of this war he 
was elected Deputy-Governor, holding that 
office for seven succeeding years, and serving 
also as Judge, and mediator with the Indians, to 
whom he was sent several times as Commis- 
sioner. In April, 1683, he was elected Gov- 
ernor on the death of William Leet, and, after 
settling a boundary line dispute with Rhode 
Island, turned his attention to Governor An- 
dross, of New York, who, under authority of 
the Duke of York, afterwards King James the 
Second of England, claimed jurisdiction over a 
portion of Connecticut. At that time many 
enemies of the colonies, who were bitterly op- 



posed to their claims to self-government, were 
using their best endeavors to injure them, and a 
petition was drawn up and forwarded to King 
Charles the Second in refutation of the calum- 
nies that had been circulated against the col- 
onies, charging them with harboring criminals 
and fugitives from justice. About this time 
Governor Dougans succeeded Governor Andross 
in New York, and Governor Treat was appointed 
one of the Commissioners to settle the disputed 
questions with the new Governor. Upon the 
accession of King James the Second, a petition 
was also addressed to him asking for clemency, 
justice, and liberty. James the Second deter- 
mined to unite New England under one govern- 
ment, and to annex Connecticut to New York; 
writs of quo warranto against the colonies were 
placed in the hands of Edwin Randolph, the 
King's legate, who threatened to serve them 
unless the colonies agreed to submit to the 
wishes of the King for their consolidation. 
Governor Treat despatched an evasive answer to 
the legate, and, in the meantime, sent an agent 
to England, specifying the rights of the colonies 
and urging that the writ had been obtained by 
misrepresentation ; but, before the agent could 
reach his destination, a third writ was issued. 
When Randolph received it, both he and the 
Governor of New York, who was to acquire the 
territory, informed Governor Treat that there 
was still time for him to acquiesce in the deci- 
sion of the King and surrender the charter of 
the colony. He refused, however, to submit, 
and made preparations to preserve his position, 
saying that they were still loyal subjects of the 
King and had done nothing to forfeit their 
charter, and that, therefore, he could not and 
would not surrender it. In October, 1687, Sir 
Edmund Andross, who was then Governor of 
Boston, wrote Governor Treat that he had re- 
ceived orders for the annexation of Connecticut 
to his government, "with particular regard and 
favor to Governor Treat," and that he should 
shortly t visit Hartford to receive the charter. 
On the 31st of October Governor Andross as- 
sumed charge of the government and demanded 
the charter. A plan for the preservation of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



199 



charter had been premeditated : Andross, taking 
his seat in the Governor's chair, demanded the 
charter, and, after various delays and objections, 
the Assembly was compelled to produce it, and 
it was laid before Governor Treat, who rehearsed 
at great length the time, trouble, toil, and ex- 
pense it had taken to build up the colony. 
Afternoon and evening had been consumed in 
his harangue, when suddenly the lights were 
extinguished by a rush from without, and the 
charter was seized and carried away to be de- 
posited in the since famous Charter Oak ; and 
thus Governor Treat's object of saving the 
charter was successfully accomplished. Gov- 
ernor Andross controlled the government of the 
colony until the flight of King James in 1688, 
when he was deposed and Robert Treat again 
became Governor, holding that office for ten 
consecutive years. . 

On the accession of William and Mary a de- 
cision was obtained in favor of the validity of 
the charter, and the wisdom and sagacity dis- 
played by Governor Treat in its preservation 
vindicated. When Treat had reached his 
seventy-sixth year, Winthrop was chosen Gov- 
ernor, but, in order that Treat's services might 
be still available to the public, though in a less 
onerous position than that of Governor, he was 
chosen Lieutenant-Governor, and held that 
office until his eighty-sixth year, when he re- 
signed and retired finally from public life. He 
was an excellent military officer, and a man of 
singular courage and resolution temperedwith 
caution and prudence. His administration as 
Governor was distinguished by wisdom, firm- 
ness, and integrity. He had spent twenty years 
in the halls of the Legislature ; seventeen years 
in the chair of Deputy-Governor ; thirteen years 
in that of Governor, retaining that office longer 
than any of his successors; while his incum- 
bancy of thirty years of the two offices has not 
been equalled in any State in which those offices 
are elective. Says Allister, " His quick sensi- 
bilities, his playful humor, his political wisdom, 
his firmness in the midst of danger, and his deep 
piety have still a traditionary fame in the neigh- 
borhood." He died, July 12th, 1710, and his 



tomb still stands in the cemetery of Milford, 
Conn., bearing this inscription: "Here lyeth 
interred the body of Colonel Robert Treat, 
Esquire, who faithfully served this colony in 
the post of Governor near ye space of thirty 
years, and at the age of four score and eight 
years exchanged this life for a better. July 
12, 1710." 

The chair in which he was inaugurated Gov- 
ernor for a long number of years is still in the 
possession of the uncle of the subject of this 
sketch. Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers 
of the Declaration of Independence, was the 
grandson of Governor Treat's son Samuel. 
Numbers of his descendants are to be found in 
New England at the present day, and others are 
settled in North Carolina, Tennessee, and many 
of the Western States. Atwater Treat, one of 
his descendants, the well-known architect of the 
Peabody Institute, New Haven, and the Theo- 
logical Seminary, Yale College, is an uncle of 
John S. Davidson, and another of Governor 
Treat's descendants. Mrs. Wilson Booth, of 
New Haven, is an aunt. 

William Dean Davidson, father of John S. 
Davidson, settled in Augusta about 1825, where 
he entered into business with his brother, John 
Shelton Davidson, after whom the subject of 
this sketch was named. On the death of his 
brother, which occurred shortly afterwards, he 
established himself in business on his own ac- 
count, and, with the exception of a short period 
spent in Rome, Ga., passed all his life in 
Augusta. 

John S. Davidson received his education at 
the schools in Augusta, Ga., and New Haven, 
Conn. His father's intention had been to send 
him to Yale College, but this was frustrated by 
the outbreak of the war between the States. 
While at the Summerville Academy, he had the 
benefit of the instruction of Mr. S. W. Hatch, 
an accomplished preceptor of that day. In 1861 
he was sent to the Auburn Institute in middle 
Georgia, an excellent institution of which Mr. 
Hatch was the principal, where he went through 
a regular collegiate course, and, in addition to 
the regular curriculum, received a course of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



private instruction. Having finished his studies, 
he was returning home when he met with a seri- 
ous and distressing accident on the way. He 
was riding a restive horse, which ran away and 
threw him from the saddle, and, his foot catch- 
ing in the stirrup, he was dragged some distance 
along the ground, breaking two bones and sus- 
taining a compound fracture of the leg. From 
this unfortunate accident he was laid up for 
twelve months, and was unable to walk without 
the aid of crutches for a number of years. He 
commenced the study of the law in 1863, under 
Major George S. Barnes, and completed his 
legal course under Henry W. Hilliard, the present 
United States Minister to Brazil, and formerly 
a member of Congress, and Minister to Belgium. 
During this period he went as a volunteer in 
charge of a small company to the coast, but, 
being unable to dispense with the use of crutches, 
was sent home again on the ground of incapacity. 
His legal studies occupied some two years, and, 
in 1S65, when only nineteen years of age, he 
was admitted to the bar after a highly creditable 
and satisfactory examination. He entered at 
once upon the practice of his profession in Au- 
gusta, Ga., in association with Mr. H. \V. Hil- 
liard, and, after some eighteen months, estab- 
lished an office of his own. In 1S76 he admitted 
his brother, William T. Davidson, as a partner, 
and is now engaged in a large and lucrative 
practice in the State Courts of Georgia and the 
District Courts of the United States. He was 
for many years associated with James R. Ran- 
dall, editor-in-chief in the conduct of the Con- 
stitutionalist, one of the leading Democratic 
newspapers of Georgia, pursuing at the same 
time the practice of his profession. During this 
period the vital questions arising out of the war 
— the supremacy of the white race, local self- 
government, etc. — were pressing for solution in 
all the Southern States, and demanding all the 
energies of the ablest minds in the South for 
their settlement. After several years of such 
incessant toil and prolonged strain on the men- 
tal faculties as is only known to the conductors 
of the daily press, in addition to his professional 
duties, his health became seriously impaired, 



and he determined, in 1871, to make an ex- 
tended tour through the Western States. Hav- 
ing arranged to combine business as a travelling 
correspondent for the Constitutionalist with his 
search for health, he started in the summer of 
1871, his route being through Chattanooga, St. 
Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Cheyenne, Ogden 
to Salt Lake City. Between Kansas City and 
Denver, in a very severe circular storm, he met 
with an accident, the storm having washed the 
track away and caused the train to run into a 
hollow. Many passengers were injured, Mr. 
Davidson being stunned by striking his head 
against the berth in the sleeping-car. He made 
the journey by easy stages, hunting buffalo and 
antelope, and living for a short time on the 
plains where numbers of Indians were met with. 
Arrived at Salt Lake City, he was provided with 
letters of introduction from Hon. Alfred Cum- 
ming, the former Governor of Utah Territory, 
which gave him the entree and proved the open 
sesame to the highest circles of Mormondom. 
Governor Alfred dimming was held in high 
estimation by the Mormons; they considered 
him thoroughly honest and able in his adminis- 
tration of the government, and the only man who 
ever did them justice ; he never tried to make 
money out of them, and did his duty without 
fear or favor, at a time when it was more diffi- 
cult than it has ever been since. Mr. Davidson 
became on intimate terms with Brigham Young, 
D. S. Wells and Smith, the triumvirate who con- 
stituted the Presidency, George Q. Cannon, the 
editor-in-chief of the Dcscret Evening News, 
and a large number of the leading men. He 
stayed there two weeks, and made himself thor- 
oughly acquainted with their institutions. In 
one of his letters to the Constitutionalist, he 
says : 

"That they are a most wonderful people in 
their enterprise, zeal, and devotion to the in- 
terests of their church no one who comes here 
and sees them as they really are, can gainsay, 
and that they have overcome more obstacles of 
nature and men than any people of this country, 
I believe a personal knowledge of them would 
compel every one to admit. They came here in 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



1847, under the lead of Brigham Young, num- 
bering 143 persons, and began building Salt 
Lake City, with 400 population. They have 
to-day 150,000 people, who confess their faith, 
beautiful cities, an excellent local and terri- 
torial government, a full treasury, and no 
debt. I have yet to see one of them ragged or 
begging bread. The city is divided into twenty 
wards or squares. In each of these wards is 
a bishop, who has the charge of its people, 
and there are also a number of teachers, as they 
are called, to whom matters are first referred 
before they are to the Bishop. They dissuade 
the people from resorting to law, and when any 
of them have a difficulty or misunderstanding 
the matter is referred to the teacher. If his 
decision does not suit, then to the Bishop ; then, 
if further steps are required by either party, it 
goes to the High Council composed of elders 
and apostles, and finally to the Presidency, 
whose decision is that of a Supreme Court. All 
their proceedings are free — cost nothing to 
either party — and I have been told that much 
care is given to the investigation of all subjects 
presented, and the decisions are almost univer- 
sally acquiesced in by those concerned. If not, 
however, the one refusing is cut off from the 
church here and hereafter, and all Mormons 
refuse to recognize or associate with him. The 
practice of law among the Mormons is said 
to starve a man to death in about a week. 
The whole church government is supported by 
what is called tithing, that is, every Mormon 
gives one-tenth of his increase after he makes 
his first offering to support the church. We 
found in the Deseret store, which is the princi- 
pal tithing depot, immense quantities of butter, 
lard, grain, etc., which had been brought there 
by Mormons living in different parts of the ter- 
ritory. The paying of tithes is voluntary, but if 
one fails to do it he is regarded as a bad Mor- 
mon, and loses his position in the church. 

"They say the Book of Mormon, translated 
from plates given to Joseph Smith by an angel, is 
the last revelation made by God, and is the Bible 
history of the American Indians, who came 
originally from Jerusalem. The church, when 



it was first organized, did not believe in polyg- 
amy, but after a time a revelation was given to 
Joseph Smith, commanding it. It is entirely 
voluntary, and, as an evidence of this, not more 
than one-fifth practise it. They say the larger 
a man's family is here, if he is otherwise good, 
the greater will be his power in the world to 
come, as he will be the ruler over his family 
circle there, just as here, and so you find 
it that young women marry old men who 
have a number of wives, so as to share the 
greater glory of heaven. I have had many 
Mormons tell me that they did not practise 
polygamy because they did not feel good enough 
to do so; that to enter into it unworthily was 
just as bad as approaching the sacrament with 
evil thoughts in your heart and malice towards 
your neighbor; that any man who married more 
wives than one, save for the purpose of ad- 
vancing the glory of God and His kingdom, 
would be punished for the sin here and here- 
after. They claim that polygamy has many 
advantages over monogamy : that the longevity 
of their women is much greater than among any 
other people ; that there is not as much suffering 
among them; that the children are healthier, 
and that it adds to their happiness and comfort 
in many ways. Sometimes a man has three or 
four houses, and a wife and family in each 
house, but oftener you find several wives occu- 
pying different apartments under the same 
roof, and apparently living happily together. 
President Young had eight of his sixteen wives 
under one roof, and no trouble ever occurred. 
The women firmly believe in polygamy, think 
God has commanded it, that the Bible supports 
it, that all good men of ancient days practised 
it, and the religious part of woman's nature 
being much stronger and deeper than man's, 
the law is accepted as thus laid down, and but 
few ever question or deny." 

From Ogden Mr. Davidson continued his 
journey to San Francisco, passing through the 
Great American Desert, where, for about sixty 
miles, the eye searches in vain for the 'sight of a 
green or living thing, and the alkali dust sweeps 
over the cars in clouds, until the throat and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



mouth become parched and the eyes blinded, 
and the clothes filled with fine penetrating dust ; 
through the snow-sheds, forty-five miles long, 
which in winter resemble an interminable, 
dreary tunnel ; past a deserted town, which in 
former days, when the road was in process 
of construction, was occupied by the workmen 
and their families, but is now deserted and 
dead. Through the Great American canon, an 
immense gorge, where the walls run up 2,000 
feet, with a dashing, foaming river below. 
Round Cape Horn, the perfection of engineer- 
ing skill, where the road-bed is cut out of the 
solid rock of the mountain, and follows around 
it more than a thousand feet above the valley 
below, the train seeming to hang in mid-air 
through the mining districts ; past Sacramento, 
with its handsome buildings and shaded streets, 
to the Golden Gate. In 1849 tne population 
of San Francisco did not exceed 2,000 souls, 
while at the present day it numbers over 150,- 
000, with splendid buildings, and all the con- 
veniences and luxuries of the oldest and wealth- 
iest cities of the eastern coast. Here Mr. 
Davidson visited the Chinese quarter, with its 
theatre, gambling hells, opium dens, and other 
abominations. From San Francisco he visited 
the Great Geysers, one of the wonders of the 
world, with their many springs, varying in tem- 
perature from 90 to 195 degrees: the "Alum and 
Iron Spring;" the "Medicated Geyser Bath ; " 
the "Black Sulphur; " "Boiling and Alum Sul- 
phur; " the " Witches' Caldron," in which the 
water is in continuous ebullition, and so deep 
that no bottom has ever been found, the tem- 
perature 195 degrees, and the water blacker than 
ink; the " Devil's Ink-Bottle," a small spring of 
very hot, black water, which when cold is said 
to be excellent ink; and finally, the "Steamboat 
Geyser," named from the unceasing noise, like the 
blowing off of steam of a high-pressure engine. 

The "Big Trees" were next visited: the 
"Fallen Monarch," measuring twenty-two feet 
in diameter at the butt, the bark of a porous, 
spongy nature, more than three feet thick ; the 
"Grizzly Giant," thirty-one feet in diameter; 
and five or six bundled other mighty trees over 



250 feet high. He rode, erect on horseback, 
through one which lay upon the ground, and ten 
of the party sat on horseback in the burned-out 
trunk of another, without being crowded for 
room. From the summit of Glazier Point, 
7,000 feet above sea-level and 3,000 feet above 
the valley, the Yosemite Valley lay beneath, an 
oasis blossoming in the mountain's stony urn, 
six miles in length by half a mile in width, and 
completely walled in by precipitous rocks, 
whose sides were striped with exquisite colors 
which almost equalled the beauties of the rain- 
bow. Through its length meandered the spark- 
ling waters of the Merced river, and the " Nevada 
Fall," in sparkling jewels, sought the river bed, 
while just beneath it, the lovely "Vernal," "a 
living Niobe dissolved in tears," threw the crys- 
tal spray on the crags below. In the distance 
were the snow -crested Sierra Nevada, and 
nearer in solemn grandeur rose the North 
Dome and the South Dome, towering three and 
four thousand feet towards the heavens; while 
between them, in the distant valley, nestled 
Mirror Lake, reflecting their summits in its 
faithful bosom. A descent of more than 3,000 
feet down the trail — encircling the mountains 
like a belt, and in some places so steep that 
often a single misstep of a horse would have sent 
them hurling thousands of feet down the moun- 
tain gorge — brought them to the beautiful 
valley, which they entered by way of the Little 
Yosemite. After exploring the transcendent 
loveliness of this " happy valley," the sight of 
whose enrapturing beauties has evoked the 
enthusiastic tribute of "See the Yosemite and 
die," Mr. Davidson paid a visit to the most 
celebrated gold and quicksilver mines, and 
returned by the Pacific railroad to Georgia, re- 
cuperated in health, and with his mind enlarged 
and invigorated by the glorious and marvellous 
scenes he had witnessed. After an absence of 
about three months he resumed the practice of 
his profession, which now absorbed the whole of 
his time and attention, in 1S75, in consequence 
of a dissolution of partnership, the Constitution- 
alist was sold, and, being reorganized as a 
joint-stock company, Mr. Davidson became 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



203 



one of the stockholders. In 1876 the paper 
passed into the hands of James G. Baillie, Fran- 
cis Cogin and John S. Davidson, with James R. 
Randall in the editorial chair. In March, 1877, 
it was consolidated with the CJwonicle and Sen- 
tinel, and is now one of the most influential 
Democratic daily papers in Georgia, as well as 
one of the leading journals of the Southern 
States. Mr. Davidson is still one of the 
proprietors. 

Mr. Davidson has all his life taken deep in- 
terest in the education question. He has been 
identified with the common school system since 
its inception, and has taken an active interest 
in its progress and success. No one in Georgia 
has given so much time and attention to the in- 
terests of education ; and at a great sacrifice of 
his professional time he has pushed forward the 
good work with a zeal that has never faltered. 

Up to 1870 what was known as the Poor 
School law was in force in Georgia; but this, 
under the changed circumstances of the country, 
was objectionable to many, the better class tak- 
ing but little interest in the schools. In 1870 
the General Assembly passed a law entitled 
"The System of Public Instruction of the State 
of Georgia," which changed very materially the 
mode of public instruction, and was the begin- 
ning of the present public school system of the 
State. At the election of the members of the 
board organized under this law, John S. David- 
son was elected one of the members for the city 
of Augusta. This was the first school board 
organized under the more advanced system of 
public instruction; and in consequence of the 
active part he had hitherto taken in educational 
affairs, he was elected President of the Board 
until 1872. In that year a local system for the 
county of Richmond, in which Augusta is situ- 
ated, was inaugurated, placing the entire man- 
agement of all educational matters in a board 
of thirty-four members. Of this board, consist- 
ing of some of the leading men in the city and 
county, Mr. Davidson was elected a member, 
and has so continued, by re-election, up to the 
present time, serving as Chairman and member 
of most important committees. He is probably 



the most influential member of the board, and 
has done more than any other to perfect the sys- 
tem of public education. On the 14th of July, 
1878, he was unanimously and by acclamation 
elected President of the board. The system of 
education is free to all, equal facilities being 
afforded to white and colored, and embraces 
the primary, intermediate, grammar and high 
schools, for scholars between six and eighteen 
years of age, the course of study covering a 
period of ten years and embodying a thorough 
classical education. The system has taken quite 
a hold on the people and is gaining in popu- 
larity — in Richmond county especially it has 
done a great deal towards restoring the proper 
relations between the white and colored popu- 
lation, who are now freely availing themselves 
of its advantages. The colored people enjoy 
very great advantages, having the same super- 
vision and care as the whites, and, though the 
schools are separate, they are all under one 
board. At present there is not a private school 
of any importance in the county. In the incep- 
tion of the system a great deal of opposition had 
to be encountered from many of the leading and 
influential citizens, as well as from vested inter- 
ests, and the result has shown the wisdom of 
Mr. Davidson's course. He delivered speeches, 
wrote articles, and worked persistently and un- 
tiringly for its success, having to overcome much 
religious and sectarian opposiiion. 

In 1877 there were about sixty schools in 
Richmond county and four high schools, two 
in Augusta and two in the county, with 
3,888 pupils. Fifty pupils are allowed to a 
teacher, and there are eighty-one teachers. The 
average cost per scholar is 79 cents per month 
on the total enrolment, the cost to the county 
$1.79 per month on the average enrolment, and 
the cost per month in the high schools about $3. 
The schools are kept open an average of nine 
months in the year. Funds are raised by local 
taxation, supplemented by an appropriation 
from the State. The board received recently a 
donation of a house and land complete, for a 
girls' high school, from Mrs. Tubman, a wealthy 
and public-spirited lady of Augusta. All the 



204 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



teachers are organized into a Normal class, which 
meets once a week for the discussion of matters 
relating to their work. The organization of the 
Conference Board of City Trustees, a subordi- 
nate board to the General Board, having charge 
of the city schools, is mainly due to Mr. David- 
son, who has several times drawn up important 
amendments to the laws. 

Mr. Davidson is a member of the Board of 
Directors and Attorney for the Georgia Chemi- 
cal Works, perhaps the largest and best organ- 
ized manufactory of fertilizers in the South. 
These works were organized by George W. 
Grafflin, one of the wealthiest and most promi- 
nent citizens of Baltimore, Md., and Treasurer 
of the Patapsco Guano Company, of that city. 
A charter was obtained from the General As- 
sembly of Georgia in 1877, and the directors 
are Benjamin C. Yancey (a brother of William 
L. Yancey, of Alabama), of Athens, President ; 
Alfred Baker, President of the National Ex- 
change Bank, Augusta; ex-Governor S. G. Ar- 
nold, of Rhode Island; John J. Middleton, of 
Maryland; John S. Davidson, of Augusta; and 
George W. Grafflin, of Baltimore, with General 
M. A. Stovall as Secretary and Treasurer. The 
works are situated in the city of Augusta, and 
were erected under the direction of Professor 
Liebig, the celebrated chemist, and Mr. G. W. 
Grafflin, and contain all the modern improve- 
ments, having been built with a view to econ- 
omy in time and thoroughness in work; the 
buildings cover an area of about 37,000 square 
feet. They have a manufacturing capacity of 
from ten to fifteen thousand tons per year, and 
the fertilizers cover in their different grades all 
the various crops in Georgia and the adjoining 
States of South Carolina and Alabama, where 
they find their principal sale. Mr. Davidson is 
Attorney and Correspondent for several corpo- 
rations and legal associations. He is Treasurer 
of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, and has 
frequently been a delegate to the diocesan con- 
ventions of the State, and has been Senior War- 
den and Treasurer of the Episcopal Church of 
the Atonement, at Augusta, Ga. 

He holds a high position in the Masonic 



world, being Worshipful Master of the Webb 
Lodge, No. 166, Augusta, Ga. ; a member of the 
Grand Lodge of Georgia, in which he is a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Jurisprudence; a mem- 
ber of the Committee in Charge of Masonic 
Work in the State; Chairman of the Committee 
on Memoirs of Deceased Grand Members; and 
was elected by the Grand Lodge a member of 
its Board of Trustees. He is a Trustee of the 
Masonic Hall, at Augusta, Ga. He has also 
been for several years Chairman of the Commit- 
tee of the Southern Masonic Female College, 
of Georgia, an important educational institu- 
tion. He has written a series of lectures on 
Masonic subjects, which have been highly com- 
mended by the lodges generally in the State, 
and will shortly be published in book form. He 
was Grand Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, 
and was succeeded by the Hon. Thomas Hardi- 
man, of Macon, a prominent candidate for Gov- 
ernor of Georgia in 1876. He has been an 
influential member of the Independent Order 
of Odd Fellows, and at one time was a member 
of the Board of Trustees of the lodge in the city 
of Augusta, charged with the control of their 
property. He is a member of the Knights of 
Honor. 

DR. H. F. CAMPBELL. 

Georgia. 

( ENRY FRASER CAMPBELL was born 
in Savannah, Ga., February 10th, 1824, 
and is the son of James Colgan Camp- 
bell, merchant, of Augusta, Ga. The 
Campbells are of Scotch-Irish extrac- 
tion ; their ancestors of the clan Campbell, of 
which the Duke of Argyll is the head, left Scot- 
land with the Presbyterian exodus, which, in the 
early part of the seventeenth century, colonized 
the province of Ulster, Ireland, and continued 
to reside in the county of Antrim for several 
generations. The Rev. John Colgan, who lived 
in the seventeenth century and was the author 
of " Ecclesiastical Antiquities," was an ancestor 
of Mrs. James Campbell, the grandmother of 
the subject of this sketch. James Campbell, his 





Uts -#obscm,J i u6.J>ttit< 




?. 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



205 



grandfather, left Randallstown, near Belfast, 
county Antrim, north of Ireland, about the year 
1797 for America, and established himself in 
business in Augusta, Ga. After five years of in- 
creasing prosperity he sent for his son, Robert 
Campbell, the elder brother of James Colgan 
Campbell, then in Ireland, to join him. On his 
arrival, being then only fourteen years of age, he 
found that his father had died of fever shortly 
before. Robert Campbell, though a mere lad, 
displayed great self-reliance and determination, 
and soon entered vigorously into business, main- 
taining himself and assisting in the support of 
his widowed mother and fatherless sisters in Ire- 
land. After securely establishing himself he 
invited his brother, James C. Campbell, then in 
Ireland, to join him, and a copartnership was 
formed between them in Savannah. Having 
passed a busy and eventful life, and amassed a 
considerable fortune, Robert Cambpell died in 
1874, at the age of eighty-six, leaving a large 
share of his property to his nephews, Henry 
Fraser and Robert Campbell. One of the daugh- 
ters of James Campbell married Mr. Carroll, and 
some of her descendants still reside in Georgia. 
Another of James Campbell's daughters married 
James Black, for many years a prominent and 
successful merchant in Charleston, S. C. ; and a 
third daughter married Mr. McVeigh, a farmer 
in good circumstances in Ireland. James Col- 
gan Campbell married Mary R. Eve, daughter 
of Joseph Eve, a man of remarkable talents and 
inventive powers ; he was one of the earliest in- 
ventors of appliances for steam as a motor 
power, especially with reference to marine and 
river navigation, the inventor of the gin which, 
somewhat modified, is the one now used for gin- 
ning Sea Island cotton, and various other me- 
chanical appliances, notably that of crushing the 
cane for the manufacture of sugar. He was the 
author of the poems, "Better to Be" and "The 
Projector," and many others, and the intimate 
friend of the illustrious Dr. Benjamin Rush, of 
Philadelphia. As an example of the estimation 
in which he was held, at a recent meeting of an 
agricultural society reference was made to Mr. 
Eve by one of the reporters, who remembered 



him as "the most intellectual being he had ever 
known." As is frequently the case with true 
genius, the epitaph of Joseph Eve, to be found 
on the tombstone at the Cottage graveyard, in 
the vicinity of Augusta, and written by himself 
on his death-bed, gives a concise history of his 
life: 

" Here rests one fortune never favored. 
He grew no wiser from the past, 
But e'er with perseverance labored 

And still contended to the last. 
In reservation he'd a haven, 

With constant hope still kept in view 
The blest abode, the promised heaven, 
Of all who strive God's will to do." 

His daughter, Mary (Mrs. James Colgan 
Campbell), inherited her father's genius and 
love of poetry. She was a voluminous authoress, 
but few of her pieces were ever published ; they 
are now treasured in a manuscript volume by 
her sons. Left a widow in 1826, at the early 
age of twenty-three years, she, with womanly 
tenderness, devoted her entire life to the care, 
education and training of her two sons, and died 
in 1861, nearly sixty years old. 

Henry F. Campbell's primary education was 
received in a country school then conducted by 
able and competent teachers; one of these, Mr. 
George E. Smythe, a most thorough linguist, is 
still living in Atlanta. In 1838 he entered the 
Richmond County Academy, one of the oldest 
institutions of learning in America, and there 
pursued his classical studies under Professor 
Ernenpeutch. After leaving the academy he 
was placed with his brother, Robert, who was 
subsequently associated with him in the practice 
of medicine, under the private tutorship of Dr. 
Isaac Bowen, a graduate of Brown University, 
Rhode Island, under whom he completed his 
studies. In 1839, while still under Dr. Bowen's 
care, he began to read medicine under his uncles, 
the late Dr. Edward A. Eve and Professor Joseph 
A. Eve, of Augusta, Ga. In 1840 he entered 
the Medical College of Georgia, now the Medi- 
cal Department of the University of Georgia, 
and was graduated thence M. D. in 1842, being 
then' but eighteen years of age: among his class- 



206 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



mates at the college were Dr. John G. West- 
moreland, founder of the Atlanta Medical Col- 
lege; Dr. Robert Hubert, since a prominent 
physician in Warrenton, Ga. ; and Dr. W. H. 
Felton, the well-known politician, now Repre- 
sentative in Congress for the Seventh District 
of Georgia. He commenced the practice of 
medicine the same year, and in consequence 
of his industry and unusual proficiency in anat- 
omy was appointed Assistant Demonstrator to 
that chair in the medical college then occupied 
by Professor George M. Newton, one of the 
founders of the Tuttle-Newton Orphan Asylum, 
the office of Demonstrator being held by Dr. 
John McLester. 

On the resignation of Dr. McLester he be- 
came Demonstrator and Prosector, which posi- 
tion he occupied until 1S54. In 1853, in con- 
junction with his brother, Dr. Robert Campbell, 
then associated with him in practice, he inau- 
gurated and established what was known as the 
"Jackson Street Hospital and Surgical Infirm- 
ary for Negroes," for the treatment of surgical 
and chronic diseases of colored people. This 
institution supplied a want long felt, and with 
the exception of a small infirmary, established 
by Dr. Paul F. Eve, was the first and by far the 
most extensive institution of the kind in the 
Southern States. It was patronized by the 
planters and slave-owners of Georgia, South 
Carolina and Florida, and the necessity for 
such an institution was apparent from the fact 
that there was no place in any of the large 
cities where the negroes could be accommo- 
dated for treatment except in the gaols. In 
1854 a new chair was created for him at the 
Medical College, that of Comparative, Micro- 
scopical and Surgical Anatomy, which he occu- 
pied until 1857, when, on the resignation of 
Professor George M. Newton, he was appointed 
to the chair of Anatomy, filling that position 
until the beginning of the war, and being at the 
same time actively engaged in an extensive and 
increasing practice. In the early part of 1857 
an event happened in the medical literary 
world that brought Dr. Campbell's name very 
prominently before the public and added greatly 



to his reputation as a physiologist ; a brief ac- 
count of the controversy may here be given. 

In June, 1850, Dr. H. F. Campbell published 
in the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, 
vol. 6, page 321, a paper on " The Influence of 
Dentition in Producing Disease," in which he 
described a function of the nervous system 
hitherto unrecognized, which he named the 
" Excito-secretory system of Nerves." This 
function results from the relation subsisting be- 
tween the excitor or sensitive nerves of the 
cerebro-spinal and the secretory branches of the 
ganglionic system. At the fifth annual meeting 
of the American Medical Association, held in 
Richmond, Va., he was, though absent, ap- 
pointed a special committee to prepare an essay 
on the subject of Typhoid Fever, which essay 
was read before that body in New York, in 
May, 1 85 3. In that paper he took occasion to 
consider carefully the ganglionic system, in 
support of the position therein assumed, that all 
typhoidal fevers were manifestations of disease 
through the secretory system of nerves. While 
thus engaged his attention was called to certain 
experiments performed by M. Claude Bernard, 
of Paris, together with his deductions therefrom. 
Finding, on examination, that they contained 
what appeared to him the germ of a theory simi- 
lar to his own recorded in June, 1850, he 
deemed it advisable to appeal to the National 
Medical Congress in a brief memoir, praying 
permission to record before them his claim to 
priority, and to protest against the palm of 
originality in reflex secretions attaching to M. 
Bernard. On the appearance of the volume of 
the Transactions containing this memoir, several 
of the prominent scientific periodicals made 
special reference to his claim of priority : the 
American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Jan- 
uary, 1854, says: "Dr. Campbell has shown 
that, at least, priority of publication is with 
him," and The New York Journal of Medicine, 
March, 1854, "the author certainly establishes 
his claim to priority of publication." In the 
London Lancet for March, 1857, Dr. Marshall 
Hall, of London, the greatest physiologist of 
the age, published a paper announcing a system 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



207 



of excito-secretory nerves in the following terms: 
"In a memoir read at the Royal Society, in 
February, 1837, I announced the existence of 
an excito-motory system of nerves. I believe I 
may now announce a system or sub-system of 
excito-secretory nerves, not less extensive." 
Upon reading this Dr. Campbell addressed a 
letter through the London Lancet to Dr. Mar- 
shall Hall, in which he advanced his claim to 
priority in the discovery and naming of the 
excito-secretory system of nerves. In this ex- 
haustive paper he sets forth in detail the par- 
ticulars of his claim, and conclusively proves by 
voluminous extracts and references to dates that 
the excito-secretory function of the nervous 
system was developed and named by him in 
1850 and 1853. Dr. Marshall Hall candidly 
yielded all claimed by Dr. Campbell, and the 
following brief extract from his letter to the 
London Lancet, May 2d, 1857, gives the sub- 
stance of his adjudication of the question: 

" It would be unjust to deny that Dr. Camp- 
bell has the merit of having first called attention 
to the excito-secretory sub-system, in the year 
1S50, and that he imposed this very designa- 
tion in 1853. So far Dr. Campbell's claims 
are undeniable, and I would say, pahnam qui 
meruit fer at. I arrive at this conclusion: the 
idea and the designation of the excito-secretory 
action belong to Dr. Campbell, but his details 
are limited to pathology and observation. The 
elaborate experimental demonstration of reflex 
excito-secretory action is the result of the ex- 
perimental labors of M. Claude Bernard. And 
now I say snum cuique. My own claim is of a 
very different character and I renounce every 
other. It consists in the vast generalization of 
the excito-secretory action throughout the sys- 
tem. There is perhaps not a point in the 
cutaneous surface, in which tetanus — an excito- 
motor effect — may not originate ; there is 
scarcely a point in which internal inflammation 
— an excito-secretory effect — may not be ex- 
cited. Every point of the animal economy is 
in solidarity by a reflex excito-secretory action 
with every other ! " And he thus concludes his 
reply to Dr. Campbell: " I trust Dr. Campbell 



will be satisfied with my adjudication. There 
is in the excito-secretory function, as applied to 
pathology, an ample field of inquiry for his life's 
career, and it is indisputably — his own. He 
first detected it, gave its designation, and saw 
its vast importance. 

"I am, sir, your obedient servant, 
"April, 1857. Marshall Hall." 

In August of that year this distinguished man 
died, and the London Lancet, of August 15th, 
1857, contained the following tribute to his 
memory : 

" Death, that most unsparing of tyrants, has 
exacted from the greatest physiologist of the 
age the last debt of nature. Slowly, surely and 
relentlessly, disease has been undermining the 
earthly tabernacle of a mind which for vast 
powers, high purposes, and indomitable energy 
has found no superior in its native land in the 
present half century. On Tuesday last, the nth 
inst, Dr. Marshall Hall died at Brighton, aged 
sixty-seven years." 

Sir Benjamin C. Brodie, the former Vice- 
President of the Royal Society of England, per- 
haps the most authoritative tribunal in the 
world, and a member of the Institute of France, 
in reply to a letter addressed to him by Dr. 
Campbell, writes as follows : 

" 14 SAVILE Row, A/ay 2d, 1S57. 

"My Dear Sir: I am much gratified by 
learning that you have found something to in- 
terest you in my little volume. The writing ii 
has been the amusement of my leisure hours 
spent at my house in the country where, during 
the last few years, I have passed several months 
annually. I have read your paper on the excito- 
secretory system of nerves, which certainly fully 
establishes your claim to originality in this in- 
vestigation. I have had no opportunity of see- 
ing Dr. Marshall Hall since I received your 
communication. I believe that he is staying at 
the sea-side, and I am sorry to add that he 
is laboring under very serious disease. 

" I am, dear sir, your faithful servant, 

" B. C. Brodie. 
"Dr. H- F. Campbell." 



2o8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Dr. Dubouvitzky, President of the Imperial 
Academy of Medicine, of St. Petersburg, in a 
communication sent through Mr. Pickens, the 
American Minister at the Russian Court, writes 
as follows : 

" St. Petersburg, March z%/h, 1S59. 
" Then as to the last-named opus (Dr. Camp- 
bell's treatise on the excito-secretory system of 
nerves), the Academy of St. Petersburg is quite 
of the opinion of the celebrated physiologist, 
Marshall Hall, as to the discovery of the inti- 
mate nexus between the peripheric nerves and 
the ganglionic system, which connection ex- 
plains the frequent occurrence of secretory phe- 
nomena from external stimuli, and though the 
facts designated by Dr. Campbell are true and 
long before known, the explication of them and 
the very proper designation of the united nerves 
from different energies by excito-secretory sys- 
tem belongs to Dr. Campbell,, as a most useful 
and honorable discovery." And in reporting 
the endorsement by the members of the 
academy of Dr. Campbell's claim to the dis- 
covery, he says : " The academy thinks that the 
most rational analysis of the influence of the 
excito-secretory functions on nutritious secre- 
tion, thermal and chemi al changes and the 
different alterations of the blood, is worthy of 
her full approbation and' of every encourage- 
ment," and adds, " Professor Campbell has been 
elected as a corresponding member of the Im- 
perial Academy of Medicine." 

Among those physiologists who subsequently 
followed M. Claude Bernard, of Paris, in the 
experimental demonstration of the reflex rela- 
tions of the cerebro-spinal and ganglionic sys- 
tem, Dr. E. Brown-Sequard has been most 
prominent. He has designated it the vaso- 
motor system, which term, though widely cur- 
rent in medical literature, is thought by Dr. 
Campbell to fail in comprehending many of the 
most important phenomena and some of the 
rationale embraced under the original term 
adopted by Dr. H. F. Campbell and Dr. Mar- 
shall Hall — excito-secretory. For the manner 
in which this question of the excito-secretory 



system was received at the period of the discus- 
sion, the writer would refer to the following 
prominent journals : Southern Medical and Sur- 
gical Journal, 1857; Lotidon Lancet, May 2d, 
1857; American Journal of Medical Sciences, 
volumes for 1857 and 1858; Nashville Journal 
of 'Medicine and Surgery, vol.- 14, page 146, and 
vol. 15, page 70, 1S58. 

The following extract from a letter from Mar- 
shall Hall, Jr., the son of Dr. Marshall Hall, 
written on the occasion of the receipt from Dr. 
Campbell of a copy of his published essays dedi- 
cated to Dr. Marshall Hall, will show the cor- 
dial feelings entertained towards him by the 
family of the distinguished physiologist : 

" Blackland's Park, near Calne, 
" Wiltshire, April 2d, 1S58. 
"The compliment you pay my dear father's 
memory cannot but be most grateful to the feel- 
ings of his family and friends, and I much re- 
joice that one of the latest acts of his life should 
have been the candid appreciation of a brother 
enquirer in the noble science of physiology. 
As he has written, the field you have entered 
upon is entirely your own, and any success you 
may achieve in the future would be dear to my 
father's heart were he alive, and will, I pray you 
believe, earnestly rejoice his son." 

At the eleventh annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association, held in Washington, 
D. C, in May, 1858, Dr. Campbell presented a 
report on the " Nervous System in Febrile Dis- 
eases, and the Classification of Fevers by the 
Nervous System," in which he maintains at 
great length, illustrated by numerous cases from 
his daily practice, the proposition that cerebro- 
spinal fevers are all paroxysmal, the secretions 
and nutrition being only secondarily affected, 
while the class which he arranges under the 
head of ganglionic fevers are all continued, the 
secretions and nutrition being primarily affected. 
The one essential diagnostic element of con- 
tinned fevers is, that they can be recognized by 
pathologists as manifestations of disease through 
the ganglionic nervous system — all of them are 
marked by fever of a continued or non-paroxys- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



209 



mal character — all present marked primary aber- 
rations in the functions of nutrition and secre- 
tion, and each has, in one degree or another, its 
own peculiar eruptive character. The report 
concludes with an elaborate tabular classification 
of the neuroses. 

On receipt of the telegraphic reports of the 
first battle of Manassas (Bull Run), July, 1861, 
he hastened to Richmond, Va., and was ap- 
pointed by the Confederate Surgeon-General, 
Dr. Samuel P. Moore, one of the consulting 
surgeons in the military hospital at Culpepper 
Court-House, where the wounded had been 
transferred from the battle-field at Manassas. 
In the meantime, a most excellent organization 
had been formed called the Georgia Relief and 
Hospital Association of Augusta, of which the 
Hon. Ebenezer Starns was the founder and first 
President ; Dr. Campbell was appointed the 
Medical Director of the Association, and pro- 
ceeded to Richmond for the purpose of estab- 
lishing military hospitals for the Georgia troops 
there. On applying to Surgeon -General S. P. 
Moore for equipments for these hospitals, he 
found it was obligatory on him to accept a com- 
mission as Surgeon of the Confederate States. 
The commission was accordingly conferred, Sep- 
tember 2d, 1861, and he was authorized to rent 
buildings and furnish equipments for the estab- 
lishment of military hospitals, to be devoted ex- 
clusively for Georgia troops. The first of these 
hospitals was conducted in the tobacco factory 
of E. A. Smith, Twenty-firs street, Richmond, 
and was placed under the charge of Surgeon 
Logan ; the second under Dr. Louis D. Ford ; 
the third was presided over by Dr. J. A. S. Mil- 
ligan, and the fourth was conducted by Dr. B. 
S. Herndon, of Fredericksburg, Va. , now of 
Savannah, Ga. The charge of these hospitals 
was changed as the war progressed, the surgeons 
in charge being assigned to other duties ; each 
of these surgeons had three assistant surgeons, 
and the whole staff reported to Dr. Campbell. 
While under the sole direction of the Confeder- 
ate Government, of which Dr. Campbell was a 
commissioned officer, these military hospitals 
bore a recognized relation to the patriotic and 



benevolent institution founded in Augusta, from 
whose agent, Mr. J. M. Selkirk, they received 
large supplies of clothing, medicines and delica- 
cies for the sick. Mr. John T. Newberry, now 
cashier of the Planters' Loan and Savings Bank, 
Augusta, was then an officer of the Confederate 
Government and clerk of the Georgia hospitals, 
and afterwards became chief clerk in the Sur- . 
geon-General's office, at Richmond. During his 
superintendence of these hospitals, Dr. Camp- 
bell, by order of the Surgeon-General, acted as 
one of the consulting Surgeons to the General 
Hospital at Richmond, and was assigned to 
extra duty as a member of the board for the 
examination of medical officers for the army. 
One of the duties of the board was the prepara- 
tion of a Manual of Surgery for the use of the 
medical officers in the field and in the hospi- 
tals. The blockade had shut out from the pro- 
fession all access to the outer world where books 
on medicine and surgery could be procured, 
especially manuals suitable for field and hospital 
use, and hence the necessity for the compilation 
of such work. The portion of the manual 
devoted to the surgery of the arteries was pre- 
pared by Dr. H. F. Campbell, and forms the 
larger portion of the book, which was published 
in 1863. In the preparation of this treatise 
there was not a single ligation described which 
had not been previously either rehearsed on the 
dead or performed on the living by Dr. Camp- 
bell, for which the large medical hospitals and 
dead-houses in Richmond gave him ample op- 
portunities. This was eminently necessary, as 
many of the field surgeons, although excellent 
general practitioners, were inexperienced in 
operative surgery. It was during his charge of 
the Georgia hospitals that Dr. Campbell origi- 
nated the radical treatment of inflammation by 
ligation of the main artery of the affected limb. 
This operation and method of treatment for 
traumatic inflammation was successfully applied 
in fifteen cases treated by him during his resi- 
dence in Richmond, of which eight were of the 
superior and seven of the lower extremity. 
"Inflammation," says Dr. Campbell, in one of 
his papers, " is a condition better described than 



2IO 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



defined. It is a state marked by redness, heat, 
pain and swelling, but all authors agree that its 
uniform and universal concomitant is too much 
blood in the affected part." All methods of 
treatment previous and subsequent to his method 
had for their chief indication the lessening of 
the redundancy of the blood, and for this pur- 
pose all surgeons advise that the inflamed limb 
shall be elevated to retard the progress of the 
blood through the arteries to the part affected, 
and to facilitate its return by the veins. The 
application of cold was made to contract the 
blood-vessels, and thus lessen the amount of 
blood ; bandages were put on to compress the 
blood-vessels, and thus diminish their capacity 
for containing blood ; leaches and scarifications 
were applied to reduce the amount of blood in 
the inflamed limb. Opiates were given to quiet 
the irritation which attracted blood to the part. 
Pressure upon the main trunk of the artery had 
been attempted, to check the flow of blood into 
the inflamed limb ; but the good effect of this 
was more than counterbalanced, first by the pain 
it produced, and then by the unavoidable press- 
ure brought to bear upon the nerves; but above 
all, was pressure objectionable on account of the 
compression upon the vein by which the blood 
was to be returned from the limb. Dr. Camp- 
bell's bold and radical measure of ligating the 
artery met all these objections by preventing the 
blood from entering the inflamed limb, except so 
much as was necessary for its bare nutrition, 
which was carried by the collateral and anasto- 
mosing (mouth to mouth) branches, while the 
vein was kept unobstructed to drain the blood 
from the limb. The ligation of the main trunk 
of a healthy limb, or of a limb immediately 
after the wound is received, is very often fol- 
lowed by mortification, but after inflammation 
lias progressed to an advanced stage, the capil- 
lary and collateral circulation have become en- 
larged, and hence ligation under these circum- 
stances, instead of producing, prevents mortifi- 
cation and rapidly cures the inflammation. 
During the war this principle was recognized 
and acted upon by the surgeons of the Confed- 
erate army, and a most distinguished authority, 



Dr. Robert Druitt, of London, who prepared 
the article "Inflammation " for the last edition 
of " Cooper's Surgical Dictionary," the most 
widely circulated and authentic surgical work 
in the English language, gives Dr. Campbell 
full credit as the originator of this radical 
method of treating traumatic inflammation. 
After describing several of Dr. Campbell's illus- 
trative cases, he says : 

" Dr. Campbell sums up the deductions to be 
drawn from his experience in the following 
vigorous sentences : ' Lastly, whether the princi- 
ple be adjudicated as a new one, or simply as the 
revival of an old one, long lost and unjustly 
neglected, we derive as a practical deduction 
from our cases, corroborated and confirmed by 
subsequent cases of others herein mentioned, 
the ever safe conservative precept that no hand, 
wrist, forearm, or elbow ; no foot, ankle, leg, or 
knee should ever be amputated for excessive 
destructive inflammation — especially those cases 
resulting from traumatic causes — without resort- 
ing, whenever the state of the patient will admit 
of it, to a previous experimental ligation of the 
artery supplying the affected region. In ex- 
tremities already condemned to amputation, if 
time be allowed, the procedure can certainly do 
no harm ; on the other hand, it will often save 
a useful limb, or at least contribute to the more 
rapid healing of the stump.'' Mr. C. F. 
Maunder, Surgeon of the London Hospital, in 
a recent work, reports some operations of his 
own, performed in 1S75, m which, after claim- 
ing some sort of originality, he admits that 
American operations had long antedated any 
of his in this direction. About three months 
previous to the surrender of Richmond, Dr. 
Campbell's health having suffered by privation 
and excessive exertion, he was sent under orders 
to Georgia with the assigned duty of inspecting 
the prison hospitals at Andersonville and else- 
where. Arriving at Augusta, he found himself 
quite unable to proceed further, and remained 
there, invalided, until after the close of the war. 
In 1865, at the reorganization of the faculty of 
the New Orleans School of Medicine, he was 
invited to occupy the chair of Anatomy, which 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



211 



he filled during the winter of 1866-67, an d, in 
the following winter, was transferred by the 
Trustees to the chair of Surgery, vacant by the 
resignation of Professors Baird and Chopin, who 
had filled the chair jointly. While in New Or- 
leans he became ex officio one of the surgeons 
of the Charity Hospital, one of the most exten- 
sive and best known eleemosynary institutions 
in the entire South. Besides his ordinary clini- 
cal lectures at the School of Medicine during 
these two winters, he delivered to the class lec- 
tures on diseases of the nervous system. He 
resigned his professorship in 1S68, and returned 
to Augusta, where, in expectation of his return, 
the chair of Anatomy previously occupied by 
him had been kept vacant a year, the lectures 
being delivered by the demonstrator. On his 
acceptance of a second chair — that of Surgery — 
in the New Orleans School of Medicine, the 
chair of Anatomy in the Medical College of 
Georgia was filled, and a new chair was created 
without name or specification of duties, and this 
was offered to Dr. Campbell on his return, with 
the privilege of selecting the character of his 
teaching. Having accepted this, he proposed 
as his department that of Operative Surgery and 
Surgical Anatomy, which was afterwards changed 
to Operative Surgery and Gynaecology, the 
courses now delivered by him at the Medical 
Department of the University of Georgia. On 
his return to Augusta he recommenced the prac- 
tice of medicine and surgery, which he had pre- 
viously been engaged in from 1842 to the out- 
break of the war in 1S61, and continues to 
perform the active duties of his profession at the 
present time. 

In a brief paper read at Savannah, Ga., April 
23d, 1875, before the Medical Association of 
Georgia, Dr. Campbell presented some of the 
advantages of inverted gravity, conditioned by 
postural pneumatic pressure in uterine displace- 
ments. His object was to establish among 
gynaecologists generally pneumatic pressure as 
it can be evoked and utilized in the genu-pec- 
toral (knee-breast) position, as a constantly 
available and powerful instrumentality ; not 
only for general use, in unusual and difficult 



cases of displacement, but for daily application 
also, in the mildest forms and degrees of uterine 
malposition. The use and benefits of this 
method would be greatly restricted and depre- 
ciated should its application involve the atten- 
tion each time of the physician or even a nurse ; 
it became, therefore, an object of earnest thought 
to Dr. Campbell that he might place in the 
hands of suffering women, through their medical 
advisers, an ever-safe and ready method of self- 
replacement, by which, in most cases, instan- 
taneous relief might be secured from not only 
the distress and many inexplicable discomforts 
of uterine dislocation, but far more important, 
from the imminent dangers to both mother and 
offspring which from this cause alone constantly 
imperil the wished-for result in the earlier 
months of gestation. Impressed with the im- 
portance of the knee and breast position in 
every variety and degree of uterine displace- 
ment, he sought to simplify the process by dem- 
onstrating that replacement can be made to 
occur almost invariably by the application of 
the pneumatic self-repositor which he invented 
for the purpose. This consists in a simple tube 
of glass, or other material, which, to use the 
language of the paper referred to, serves as an 
airway for the 'production of equilibrium of 
atmospheric pressure, thus allowing the inverted 
gravity to act in reduction. This method has 
been very generally accepted and used by the 
profession both in this country and in Europe. 
The instrument itself is for the use of the patient 
in obtaining self-relief, and not to be applied by 
the physician. By this means much unneces- 
sary suffering and many severe trials to the feel- 
ings are spared the patient. The papers em- 
bodying Dr. Campbell's views on this important 
subject may be found in the Atlanta Medical 
and Surgical Journal of June, 1875, and in tne 
first volume of the American Gynaecological 
Transactions of 1876. 

At the meeting of the International Medical 
Congress in Philadelphia, September, 1876, Dr. 
Campbell read a paper on " Neuro-dynamic 
Etiology and Pathology of Urinary Calculus." 

The various theories of Lithogenesis, the prin- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



cipal among which has been " the hard-water 
hypothesis," having failed to account satisfac- 
torily for the origin of stone in the bladder and 
urinary passages, Dr. Campbell's investigation 
has been entered upon to find some other more 
philosophic and plausible. The result of his 
researches into the history of bis own forty-five 
or fifty cases, and that of the cases of other 
lithotomists, has been the enunciation of the 
proposition that the inauguration of the calculus 
diathesis and the accumulations of concretions 
in the urinary passages is most frequently the 
result of neuro-dynamic influences, and that it is 
by reflex exci to-secretory action that the secre- 
tions are modified so as to give rise to the pro- 
duction of uric acid nuclei in the bladder — uric 
acid being the nucleus in over five-sixths of the 
concretions removed from this cavity. He ac- 
counts for the very large proportion of children 
as the subjects of calculus in the fact that the 
derangements of the digestive organs, as he has 
before argued (1^50), are caused by the irrita- 
tion of dentition being reflected from the dental 
branches of the fifth pair of nerves through the 
spinal marrow and uriemogastric to the liver, 
where the excessive secretion of uric acid is thus 
neuro-dynamically excited. This being ex- 
creted by the kidneys in over-abundance at that 
time, many crystals and concretions are formed, 
giving abundant opportunities for the supply of 
nuclei and the great preponderance of urinary 
calculus in children and infants. This is his 
last application of the exci to-secretory function 
to the explication of morbid phenomena. 

In his practice he has made specialties of the 
two kindred departments of Surgery and Gynae- 
cology. He is ex officio one of the Surgeons of 
the Augusta City Hospital, and of the Freed- 
men's Hospital. Among his more prominent 
operations may be mentioned forty-five cases of 
lithotomy, of which forty-three were successful ; 
fifteen cases of ligation of the arteries for the 
cure of gangrenous inflammation, and a large 
number of operations for vesico-vaginal fistula. 
Like his friend, Ur. Marshall Hall, of London, 
Dr. Campbell is the deviser of a "ready 
method" of artificial respiration for the res- 



toration of persons in a state of asphyxia from 
opium, drowning, or other causes. Having 
observed during his studies of practical anatomy 
that, on lifting the dead body by the arms, 
the air rushed forcibly into the lungs by the 
expansion thus caused in the thorax, and that 
it could be again expelled by pressing the arms 
against the body, he devised upon this principle 
what he calls artificial respiration in the sitting 
posture. This he first applied in 1S60 in a case 
of extreme narcotism and asphyxia from opium, 
two ounces of the tincture having been taken 
by the patient. In another case a man was 
rescued after a suicidal dose of fifteen grains of 
morphine, the process being kept up all night 
by relays of assistants. Since then he has re- 
peatedly applied it, both in cases of opium poi- 
soning and congestion of the brain, and, in all 
cases of opium poisoning, if the process be 
begun before the heart ceases its action, life can 
be sustained for an indefinite length of time, or 
until antidotes, as caffeine or atrapine, can be 
allowed time to act. In a pamphlet published 
by Dr. Campbell in i860 entitled " Caffeine as 
an antidote in the poisonous narcotism of 
opium," he remarks with regard to this alkaloid 
active-principle of coffee: "Caffeine, it would 
appear then, somewhat in the same manner as 
strychnine, may be regarded as one of the most 
efficient agents for restoring muscular contrac- 
tility, and for reviving the tonicity of the 
muscular fibre. If in caffeine, so powerful an 
alkaloid — possessing in a concentrated form all 
the antisoporific virtues of coffee — we have thus 
found an antidote for the narcotic effects of 
opium, and one which can be applied even in 
the most extreme states by injection, we must 
feel that an important extension of its applica- 
tion as a therapeutic agent has been made, and 
that many lives may be saved hereafter by its 
use." 

On the passage of an act for the establishment 
of a Board of Health for the State of Georgia, 
he was appointed Sanitary Commissioner for 
the Eighth District. Dr. Campbell has sus- 
tained relations with the several medical asso- 
ciations of the country. He was one of the 



REPRESENTATIVE" MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



213 



first members of the Medical Association of 
Georgia, its Vice-President and Orator in 1852, 
and President in 1871. He is a member of the 
American Medical Association, Prize Essayist in 
1857, and one of the Vice-Presidents in 1858; 
Correspondent of the Academy of Natural Sci- 
ences, Philadelphia, elected in 1858; Corre- 
sponding member of the Imperial Academy of 
Medicine, St. Petersburg, Russia, elected May, 
i860; a Fellow and one of the founders of the 
American Gynecological Society, in 1876; a 
foreign member of the Swedish Society of Physi- 
cians, elected at Stockholm, December, 1877 ; 
President of the Augusta Library and Medical 
Society, elected 1877. 

The following may be mentioned as among 
his more important contributions to medical 
literature. In the list will be found some to 
which special reference has already been made, 
viz. : "Abortive Treatment of Gonorrhoea by 
Nitrate of Silver," Southern Medical and Surgi- 
cal Journal, January, 1845; "Abuse of Di- 
uretics," ibid., same date; "Observations on 
Cutaneous Diseases," ibid., August and October, 
1845, an0 - August, 1847; "Infantile Paroxysmal 
Convulsions: their Identity with Intermittent 
Fever, and their Treatment with Quinine," ibid., 
October, 1849; "Dentition in Producing Dis- 
ease (reflex-secretory or vaso-motor action)," 
ibid., June, 1850; "Epidemic Dengue Fever, 
etc.," ibid., January, 1851 ; "Law governing the 
Distribution of Striped and Unstriped Muscular 
Fibre," ibid., March, 1851, and Transactions 
American Medical Association, volume iv. ; 
"Injuries to the Cranium in their Relations to 
Consciousness," Southern Medical and Surgical 
Journal, 1851; "Bilateral Lithotomy," ibid., 
August, 1851; "Unusual Form of Fever and 
Dysentery," ibid., 1851; "Report on Surgery," 
Transactions Medical Association of Georgia, 
1852; " The Nature of Typhoidal Fevers, etc.," 
Transactions American Medical Association, 
May, 1853; "The Sympathetic Nerve in Reflex 
Phenomena a Question of Priority of Announce- 
ment with M. Claude Bernard, etc.," ibid., May, 
1853; "Strangulated Ventral Hernia during 
Pregnancy," Soutliern Medical and Surgical 



Journal, January and March, 1S57; "Clinical 
Lecture on Traumatic Tetanus," ibid., Febru- 
ary, 1857; "The Excito-secretory System of 
Nerves, etc.," prize essay, Transactions Ameri- 
can Medical Association, May, 1857; "Meckel's 
Ganglion, etc.," Southern Medical and Surgi- 
cal Journal, February, 1858; "Classification 
of Febrile Diseases by the Nervous System," 
Transactions American Medical Association, 
1857; "The Nervous System in Febrile Dis- 
eases, Excito-secretory or Reflex Vaso-motor 
Action the Basis of their Phenomena," ibid., 
1858; "The Secretory and the Excito-secretory 
System," one volume 8vo., 135 pages, Lippin- 
cott, Philadelphia, 1S58; "Caffeine as an Anti- 
dote in Opium," Southern Medical and Surgi- 
cal Journal, May, i860; "A New 'Ready 
Method:' Artificial Respiration in the Sitting 
Posture," ibid., May, i860; "Croup a Paroxys- 
mal Neurosis: its Treatment with Quinine," 
ibid., May, i860; "Caffeine in Opium-coma 
(second case), Injection by the' Rectum," ibid., 
August, i860; " The Effect of Caffeine upon the 
Muscular System," ibid., May, i860; "The 
Georgia Military Hospitals of Richmond," 
pamphlet, Augusta, Ga., 1S61; "Traumatic 
Hemorrhage and the Arteries, etc.," a chapter 
in the "Confederate Manual of Military Sur- 
gery," one volume nmo., 297 pages, Richmond, 
1863; "The Hunterian Ligation of Arteries in 
Destructive Inflammation," Southern Journal of 
the Medical Sciences, New Orleans, August, 1S66 ; 
"Cooper's Surgical Dictionary," London, 
1872 (article, "Inflammation"); "Position, 
Pneumatic Pressure and Mechanical Appliances 
in Uterine Displacements, etc.," pamphlet, 
Augusta, 1S75, Atlanta Medical and Surgical 
Journal, June, 1875; "Registration and Sani- 
tation, etc.," first Report of Board of Health 
of Georgia, 1875 'i " Blood-letting in Puerperal 
Eclampsia, etc.," American 'Journal of Obstetrics 
and Diseases of Women and Children, August, 
1876; "Railroad Transportation of Disease- 
germs, etc., etc. (Yellow and Dengue Fever in 
the South in 1839, 1850, 1854 and 1876) : " 
Annual Report Board of Health of Georgia, 
1S76; "Pneumatic Self-replacements in Dislo- 



214 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



cations of the Gravid and Non-gravid Uterus," 
American Gynaecological Transactions, 1876; 
"Calculi in the Bladder after the Cure of 
Vesico-vaginal Fistula," ibid., 1876; "The 
Neuro-dynamic Etiology and Pathology of 
Urinary Calculus, and Arterial Ligation in the 
Treatment of Traumatic Inflammation and Gan- 
grene," read before the Surgical Section of the 
International Medical Congress, in 1876. 

In addition to his out-door and consultation 
practice, Dr. Campbell is consulted extensively 
by correspondence. He has given the whole of 
his attention to his profession, often to the ex- 
clusion of the much-needed rest and recreation 
so necessary to those engaged in active profes- 
sional pursuits; and Roseneath, the country 
residence of the family, situated in Campbell 
Park and Forest, a favorite resort in the wild 
and romantic mountain region, near Clarksville, 
Ga., aptly termed the Southern Switzerland, has 
seldom afforded him the relaxation which such 
prolonged and incessant labor demands. 

He married, in 1844, Sarah Bosworth, eldest 
daughter of Amory Sibley, one of the oldest and 
most extensive merchants of Augusta, who was 
at the time of his death President of the Me- 
chanics' Bank, of Augusta. He has but one 
child, a married daughter, Mrs. Caroline C. 
Doughty. Mrs. Campbell is a lady of unusual 
attainments and cultivation, and has ever taken 
a deep interest in her husband's labors ; to her 
encouragement and to the gentle inspiration of 
her approving and suggestive sympathy his suc- 
cess in his profession is largely due. 



REV. J. K. GUTHEIM. 

Louisiana. 

af AMES KOPPEL GUTHEIM was born, 

Al ■ November 15th, 181 7, at Menne, Dis- 
2JI trict of Warburg, Westphalia. He 
springs from a family in which Hebrew 
learning was much cultivated. His 
father, Meyer Gutheim, was a proficient Hebra- 
ist and Tahnudical scholar, and his grandfather, 




Rabbi Jacob Koppel, a rabbinical authority in 
the district. At the early age of five he entered 
the Talmud Torah school, at Warburg, was 
initiated into the Talmud by Rabbi Mann Steg, 
and frequented the progymnasium until his 
fourteenth year. At this tender age he became 
Hebrew teacher at Oberlistingen, where he re- 
mained two years, pursuing his classical studies 
under the guidance of Dr. Paulus, the learned 
Protestant minister of the place. Thence he 
removed to Munster, the capital of Westphalia, 
to finish his collegiate course and to enjoy the 
rabbinical instruction of the late Rabbi Abra- 
ham Sutro, chief rabbi of the province, from 
whom he received a diploma of proficiency. 
He officiated as preacher and teacher in Senden- 
horst, Westphalia, from 1838 to 1842, and then 
emigrated to New York, where he arrived in 
1843. At first he acted as book-keeper in the 
counting-room of a brother, a merchant in this 
city, ar.d wrote an occasional article for the 
press. 

From thence he was called, in 1846, to Cin- 
cinnati, and there officiated as preacher and 
principal of a Hebrew and general school. After 
a year's residence in Cincinnati he took charge 
of the B'nai Yeshurun congregation, which he 
retained for three years, and laid the corner- 
stone and dedicated the first temple of that 
congregation, now under the charge of Rev. 
Dr. J. M. Wise. In 1850 he received a call 
from the Shangari Chassed congregation of 
Rampart street, New Orleans, and in March, 
1851, dedicated the beautiful new temple 
erected for their use. In January, 1854, he 
performed the funeral rites of Judah Touro, the 
affluent, philanthropic and patriotic merchant 
of New Orleans; and in June following, when 
the remains were removed to Providence, R. I., 
where the deceased was born and his father had 
ministered more than eighty years before, Mr. 
Gutheim again conducted the religious services. 
These solemn and impressive rites were in strict 
accordance with the ritual of the Hebrew 
Church, and, witnessed as they were by many 
for the first time, profoundly impressed the great 
concourse of spectators. The Providence Journal, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2I 5 



of June 8th, 1854, speaking of Mr. Gutheim's 
address, says : 

"Mr. Gutheim is a German, and has been 
only twelve years in our country. He speaks 
English, however, with such freedom, accuracy 
and elegance as led all unacquainted with him 
to believe that he was either of British or Ameri- 
can birth. His elocution was most admirable. 
There was so much euphony in his reading of 
the Hebrew Scriptures that even the uninstructed 
in that ancient tongue were delighted. But 
when he read in the vernacular that sublime 
psalm upon the frailty of human life, beginning, 
'Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all 
generations,' each one present seemed almost 
involuntarily to exclaim, ' How beautiful ! how 
eloquent ! ' " 

In 1854 he transferred his ministry from the 
Rampart street congregation to the Portuguese 
congregation of New Orleans, known as "the 
Dispersed of Judah," and in April, 1857, dedi- 
cated their spacious and beautiful new syna- 
gogue, " Nefutsoth Jehudah," then just com- 
pleted, of which he had laid the corner-stone in 
the previous year. This synagogue was erected 
in place of the old synagogue on Canal street, a 
donation of Judah Touro. 

In 1863 he left New Orleans for Montgomery, 
Ala., where for over two years he was in charge 
of the Hebrew congregation of that city, as well 
as another at Columbus, Ga., which he visited 
every month. At the close of the civil war he 
returned to New Orleans, where, finding the 
Portuguese congregation almost scattered, he 
accepted the call of his old congregation, on 
Rampart street, with the distinct understanding 
that he should introduce reform measures. In 
1866 he laid the corner-stone of the synagogue 
erected by the Association " Temime Derech." 
In 1868 he was invited to accept the position of 
English Lecturer in the Temple Emanuel con- 
gregation of New York, which office he entered 
upon November 1st, 1868. Before leaving New 
Orleans, such was the high esteem in which he 
was held by his fellow-citizens of all shades of 
religious belief, that the following memorial, 
signed by over one hundred gentlemen, repre- 



senting the worth, standing and intelligence of 
New Orleans, was presented to him to induce 
him to remain : 

"New Orleans, June \bth, 186S. ' 
"Rev. James K. Gutheim: 

"Reverend Sir: We, the undersigned citi- 
zens of New Orleans, not of your faith, but for 
many years your personal friends and admirers, 
have learned with profound regret of a movement 
having for its object your permanent removal to 
New York. Your long residence in this city 
has identified you with her welfare and secured 
for you a high place in the affections of her 
people. We recognize in you the warm-hearted 
genial friend, the enlightened patriotic citizen, 
and the divine of extraordinary learning, clear- 
ness of perception and power of eloquence 
rarely equalled. We regard your removal from 
us not merely an irreparable loss to your church 
and people but a calamity to this city and State, 
as we cannot afford at this time to lose such men 
as you. We most sincerely hope, therefore, 
that some satisfactory arrangement may be made 
for your remaining permanently among us, that 
your example and eloquence may lead this peo- 
ple in paths of education, virtue and peace. 

"Believe us to remain, with sentiments of 
great respect, your most obedient servants." 

He remained in New York for four years, and 
while there attended the Rabbinical Convention 
held in Philadelphia, in 1869, of which body he 
was the Vice-President. In connection with 
Hon. Morris Ellinger he established the Jewish 
Times, a journal which holds high rank as an 
organ of Reformed Judaism, and was its Asso- 
ciate Editor for the year 1869. During his 
sojourn in the Empire City a new Reform Con- 
gregation, under the name of the Temple Sinai, 
had been formed in New Orleans, and Mr. Gut- 
heim was solicited to return to the scene of his 
former labors. In November, 1871, he visited 
New Orleans for the purpose of laying the 
corner-stone of the new Temple Sinai. The 
ceremony took place on Sunday, November 
19th, when Mr. Gutheim delivered the follow- 
ing address, which, as an example of style and 



2l5 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of the aims of the reform movement in Judaism, 
may here appropriately find a place : 

"Sinai and Zion ! Two names of the most 
thrilling interest, of the deepest importance, of 
the most salutary influence to Israel and to man- 
kind. They are the mountains of the Lord, 
from which heavenly truth gushed forth and 
spread in ever-widening circles. They are the 
fountain-heads of the religious and moral cul- 
ture of the human race, the elevated points, 
where heaven and earth are happily blended, 
the divine and human harmoniously united. 
Sinai and Zion are household-words, wherever 
God is worshipped in spirit and in truth, for 
' from Sinai the Lord shone forth, at his right 
hand a fiery law ' — ' and from Zion comes forth 
the law and the word of God from Jerusalem. ' 

"Sinai and Zion! What hallowed associa- 
tions cluster around these two names, whose 
pristine brightness has remained undimmed in 
the march of many centuries and the wide area 
of the earth's surface. They are forever syno- 
nyms of light and truth. Even from this dis- 
tant spot in the New World we cannot help 
contemplating them with a solemn veneration 
and sacred delight as their outlines and their 
historical importance rise before our mental 
vision. The stone, laid as a foundation in 
Zion, was the imperishable block, hewn from 
Sinai's adamantine quarry. However fierce the 
storm of human, passions, however violent the 
onslaught of the misconceived zeal, engendered 
by blind fanaticism, it was too firmly imbedded, 
ever to be dislodged. It was 'a tried stone' 
designed and fashioned by the hand of Omnipo- 
tence, and upon its foundation the temple of 
truth and of love, the temple of knowledge of 
the One and only God, the Father of all — and 
of the fraternal bonds that should unite all his 
children, was to be reared in all its holiness and 
glory for the happiness of man. It was a 
' precious corner-stone ' exceeding all worldly 
grandeur and material wealth, as it constitutes 
the immovable basis of moral purity and great- 
ness of soul. Whoever built upon this stone, 
his structure was well founded ; whoever stood 
'firm and faithful, did not hastily waver,' but 



from the midst of temporary gloom and harass- 
ing trials he looked forward, with the eye of 
hope, to a bright and peaceful future. ' The 
tried stone, the precious corner-stone, laid as a 
sure foundation in Zion,' is identical with the 
corner-stone of Judaism. To speak without 
metaphor. Judaism is founded upon the belief 
in the absolute unity of God, in the recognition 
and worship of the One spiritual, all-wise, all- 
merciful and omnipotent Creator and Ruler of 
the universe, who has created man in His own 
image by endowing him with a soul, capable of 
comprehending this truth, of unfolding its in- 
herent intellectual and moral powers, and 
destined for immortality. This truth pro- 
claimed from Sinai and ratified at Zion for the 
benefit of all mankind, ' in order, as Solomon 
prays, that all the people of the earth may 
know, that the Lord is God and there is none 
else ' — is neither enveloped in mysteries, nor 
disfigured by types. It is in beautiful harmony 
with human reason and directly appeals, in ten- 
der and soothing accents, to the human heart. 
It is the perpetual revelation of the eternal, im- 
mutable, ever-living God to the spirit of man in 
every age. Before the heavenly light of this 
truth, the lurid flames of idolatry and supersti- 
tion and the meteoric flashes of atheism must 
pale their ineffectual fires. The standard of 
religious truth, thus unfurled by Israel, will be 
held aloft, until all the families of the earth will 
flock around it for their blessing. The belief 
in the One eternal God and Father, as taught 
by Judaism, has proved, directly and indirectly, 
the most potent factor in the advancement of 
true civilization. It has steadily promoted the 
moral progress, elevated the mind and refined 
the heart of man. It has shed its heavenly 
light on, and clearly defined the eternal princi- 
ples of justice, of liberty, of brotherly love. 
At a time, when darkness covered the nations, 
when heathenism with its flagrant vices and 
gross aberrations brutalized mankind, the law 
of Sinai inculcated as practical rule9 for govern- 
ment and for life, ' You shall have but one law 
and one judgment for the native and for the 
stranger,' i. c, you shall mete out equal justice 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF- THE SOUTH. 



217 



to all; 'you shall neither vex nor oppress the 
stranger,' but accord him the full measure of 
liberty which you' enjoy; 'thou shalt love the 
stranger as thyself — a command which appears 
as a complementary enforcement of the com- 
prehensive moral precept, ' Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself.' And these principles 
were compressed into one beautiful sentence by 
the last of Zion's prophets, ' Have we not all 
One Father? hath not one God created us? 
Why then should we act treacherously one 
against another?' Yes, the belief in one God, 
who embraces all mankind in His paternal love 
and wise providence, must strengthen the senti- 
ment in the human heart, to regard and treat 
every human being as the child of God, as a 
brother. Upon this- belief, therefore, ' as the 
tried and precious corner-stone,' the world-wide 
temple of humanity is destined to rise, slowly 
but surely, in its grand and lofty proportions. 
The memories and associations clustering around 
Sinai and Zion were never dissevered from 
Israel's history; they are not simply the dead- 
letter record of the past, but are enshrined as 
imperishable legacies in the hearts of the people 
selected by God as the missionaries of divine 
truth ; they come to us to-day, enforced not 
only by the faith and constancy, the virtues and 
sacrifices and sufferings of a long line of ances- 
try, but by the lessons and experiences of the 
times in which we live ; and we are resolved, 
not with any feeble expectation or faltering hope 
only, but with a firm persuasion and assured 
trust and faith, to send them down all sparkling 
and blazing to the remotest posterity. In the 
spiritual empire of religious truth ' the sceptre 
has not departed from Judah.' The two great 
religious systems, which ostensibly govern the 
civilized world, Christianity and Mohammedan- 
ism, have sprung from Judaism ; whatever is 
sound and vigorous and fruitful in their consti- 
tutions has been drawn from, and is quickened 
by her life-sustaining maternal bosom. Juda- 
ism, like the sun, is resplendent in its own light, 
while its planetary orbs shine in a borrowed 
effulgence drawn from its primitive fountain. 
Truth remains unalterably the same. It is the 



signet of God, stamped upon nature and history, 
upon matter and spirit, eternal and immutable 
like God himself. The principles and doctrines 
of Judaism, therefore, with their divine charter 
of Sinai and their tried corner-stone of Zion, 
must be true to all eternity. No expediency, 
no compromise, no sophistry can shake their 
permanent validity. If the recognition and 
worship of the Holy One was ever true (and 
this fact must be universally conceded), if at 
any time it was the precious corner-stone of 
genuine faith and morality, then the doctrine of 
One God, who exists peerless and alone in His 
divine majesty, must remain true, as long as the 
mind of man is capable of reasoning and the 
heart of man susceptible of truth. It was the 
peculiar, heaven-ordained mission of Israel, to 
be the custodian, the propagator, the ever- 
existing witness of this truth, the Messiah of 
nations, the light of the Gentiles. To- this end 
it was appointed, by divine mandate, ' as a king- 
dom of priests and a holy nation ; ' to this end 
it has been preserved throughout the checkered 
events of history, amidst the crumbling of 
thrones and the crash of empires, bravely sus- 
taining the fierce and prolonged storms of in- 
tolerance, of fanaticism and persecution that 
raged around its devoted head. Beyond the 
cloudy horizon of the gloomy present, it ever 
discerned the bright dawn of a serene future, 
' when the knowledge of God will cover the earth, 
as the waters cover the sea.' For although reli- 
gious truth has advanced by slow and measured 
stages, yet its dominion has visibly expanded, 
and its future realization, though remote, is 
sure and certain. In the words of the prophets, 
Isaiah and Micah, 'And it shall cpme to pass in 
the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's 
house shall be firmly established on the top of 
the mountains, and shall be exalted above the 
hills ; and unto it shall flow all the nations. 
And many people shall go and say, Come ye, 
let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to 
the house of the God of Jacob ; that he may 
teach us of his ways, and we may walk in his 
paths.' Until that time, when all mankind will 
know and worship the One and only God, Juda- 



2l8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ism, the venerable and faithful mother, is will- 
ing and anxious to live in amity, in brotherhood, 
and in peace with her numerous offspring of 
variously apparelled daughters. Synagogue and 
Church, though differing in matters of faith, 
are yet in perfect agreement on the moral law 
of the Bible. Upon this broad platform we 
stand as a united band of brothers, inspired by 
a common duty, to work for the improvement 
and happiness of our common race. There is 
nothing more wonderful in the history of the 
human race than the way in which the religious 
and moral ideal of Sinai has traversed the lapse 
of ages, acquiring a new strength and beauty 
with each advance of civilization, and infusing 
its beneficent influence into every sphere of 
thought and action. The moral development 
of mankind is sure to progress to its destined 
goal by the assimilating and attractive influence 
of this grand ideal. In the present aspect of 
the world it devolves upon Judaism to present 
the standard of this ideal to the public eye, in 
all its attractiveness and perfection, stripped of 
mere speculative doctrines and ritualistic ob- 
servances which in former periods of history 
were deemed necessary for its preservation. 
True religion sanctions no doctrine which 
collides with our reason or our moral sense; no 
speculative theories or ceremonies, which, with- 
out being opposed to conscience, are at least 
wholly beyond its sphere. Guided by these 
principles and considerations, the movement of 
modern reform in Judaism was inaugurated, 
and has steadily gained the fervent sympathy 
and support of numerous faithful adherents. It 
is a plant of spontaneous growth, emanating 
from within and not from without, and hence 
must thrive and prosper. 

"Reform means rational progress; reform 
means life; reform means enlightened convic- 
tion ; reform means sublime devotion to the 
holiest interests and to the grand ideal ever 
cherished by Judaism. Under the banner of 
reform, Judaism has revived from its lethargy, 
has put forth its native energy and vigor, and bids 
fair to realize its glorious future. Directed at 
first to the abatement of crying abuses in the 



synagogue, it has steadily extended its sphere, 
and its regenerating influence is now felt in 
every department of Jewish life. It has breathed 
order into the chaos, chased away the dense 
clouds of superstition that darkened the religious 
horizon, and purified the spiritual atmosphere 
of Israel. And these grand results have been 
achieved, ' not by force, not by violence, but by 
the power of truth.' Members of 'Temple 
Sinai ! ' Words are inadequate to convey to you 
my emotions of deep-felt gratitude for having 
called me from the distant North to express the 
ideas and sentiments which the act in which we 
are engaged naturally inspires. It affords me a 
holy satisfaction to witness the substantial 
evidences on your part, that the seeds, which 
your former teacher and- guide has sown in 
singleness of purpose and purity of motive, have 
not fallen on barren soil. You have undertaken 
a holy and glorious work. The corner-stone is 
about to be laid to-day — the temple will soon be 
erected, and afford, under Divine Providence, a 
lasting monument to your noble efforts. Great, 
no doubt, were the exertions, great the sacrifices 
which it has hitherto cost you ; and still the 
work is yet in its inception, and great, no doubt, 
will yet be the sacrifices for its completion. ' Be 
strong, therefore, and of good courage, fear not, 
nor be ye afraid.' Persevere in your holy zeal. 
' Remain steadfast and faithful, do not hastily 
waver.' Continue to act, as you have hitherto 
done, in union and harmony, with courage and 
perseverance, and all difficulties will be easily 
surmounted, a triumphant success will crown 
your efforts. As your fathers, the whole people 
of Israel, were assembled in the days of yore at 
the base of Mount Sinai, and listened to the 
words of revelation, which since then constitute 
the corner-stone of the temple of humanity, so 
you are assembled this day around the corner- 
stone of 'Temple Sinai,' renewing your alle- 
giance to God, determined to remain faithful to 
the spirit of His holy law. But unlike your 
fathers, you are not encamped in a bleak, inhos- 
pitable desert, nor surrounded by hostile, bar- 
barian tribes, but are free citizens of a great and 
glorious republic, settlers of a thriving and noble 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



219 



State, residents of a fair city, whose changing 
fortunes could not affect the high-minded im- 
pulses, the liberal and generous spirit, by which 
its inhabitants were ever distinguished. Indeed, 
the numerous attendance of our fellow-citizens 
of other creeds, some to testify their interest and 
sympathy as spectators, others by active partici- 
pation in the exercises of the hour, practically 
illustrates the beautiful line of the sacred bard, 
' Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for 
brethren to dwell together in unity.' Let the 
corner-stone, therefore, be laid with the accus- 
tomed rites by the worthy brotherhood, whose 
motto is Light, Truth and Charity, whose prin- 
ciples and practice are in full harmony with the 
principles and practice of Judaism. In the name 
of God, we solemnly dedicate this corner-stone 
upon which the sacred edifice is to rest. May 
the ' Temple Sinai ' realize the fervent anticipa- 
tions of its founders, become a fountain of 
holy and blessed influence, a visible embodi- 
ment and Messianic teacher of the two cardinal 
principles of true religion : 'allegiance to God — 
good-will to man .'"' 

In 1872 he accepted the call and entered on 
his duties as rabbi and minister. This congre- 
gation was organized on reform principles, and 
adopted the ritual of the Temple Emanuel of 
New York. It consists of about 150 members, 
and is the first in influence and numbers in New 
Orleans. The temple, which is a large brick 
building in the Moorish style, is chaste and 
handsome in its interior decorations, and will 
seat about 1,300 people; its cost was $70,000. 

Mr. Gutheim has taken a prominent and active 
part in founding and promoting the success of 
all the charitable institutions of New Orleans. 
He was one of the founders and a principal 
mover in the organization of the Association 
for the Relief of Jewish Widows and Orphans, 
and has been successively its Secretary, Treas- 
urer and First Vice-President ; the latter office 
he still holds. Of the Touro Infirmary he has 
been Vice-President since its organization in 
1854. He has been member of the board, and 
President of the Hebrew Benevolent Association 
since his residence in the Crescent City, and 



has been First Vice-President of the Touro In- 
firmary and Hebrew Benevolent Association 
since the consolidation of the two institutions 
in 1874. During his official career he has dedi- 
cated temples for Hebrew worship in Louis- 
ville; St. Louis; Cincinnati; San Antonio, 
Texas ; Mobile ; Montgomery ; New Orleans, 
and several other cities. Since 1877 he has 
been a member of the Board of Directors of the 
Public Schools of New Orleans; he is Chairman 
of the Committee on Teachers, and acting 
President in the absence of the President, Hon. 
T. J. Semmes. Mr. Gutheim has published a 
large number of sermons and lectures, some of 
which have appeared in the press and others in 
pamphlet form ; and a selection entitled the 
"Temple Pulpit," containing sermons and 
addresses delivered en special occasions, making 
a neat volume of 175 pages, was published in 
New York in 1872. He has translated from the 
German the Fourth Volume of the History of 
the Jews, by Dr. H. Graetz; and has translated 
from the Hebrew about one-half of the book of 
Psalms. He has also prepared a collection of 
Hymns for the Temple Emanuel, mostly trans- 
lations from the German. 

It would be as presumptuous as it would be im- 
possible, in our limited space, to attempt to de- 
fine here the difference between the Reformed 
and the Orthodox Jewish faith. It may be said, 
however, that the Reformed school hold the 
purely religious and devotional part of Judaism 
as deeply and reverently as the most orthodox, 
but they look upon the Levitical laws as having 
reference to the time, place and circumstances 
under which they were promulgated — as being 
of purely local and temporary importance; 
some of them necessarily having to be aban- 
doned, as opposed to modern civilization. The 
movement is purely a result of intellectual 
progress, a necessary corollary of the advance 
made in civilization. They insist, only, upon 
three articles of faith : The unity of God; the 
existence of revelation, i. e., a direct relation 
between God and man ; and the immortality of 
the soul. All things else are matters of dis- 
cipline or expediency, and of no vital impor- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



tance. They believe that the Messiah has come 
— that the people of Israel are the Messiah. That 
the prophecies have reference to the whole 
people of Israel, who were to be the sufferer of 
mankind — to be forcibly scattered over the 
world, and to serve as a channel through which 
all the nations of the earth should come to a 
knowledge of the true and only God, and to be 
redeemed and reclaimed from idolatry. 

Mr. Gutheim is a gentleman of deep research 
and of the highest culture, possessed of rich 
stores of recondite learning. A scholar, theo- 
logian and orator, remarkable for the compre- 
hensiveness of his ideas, the soundness of his 
reasoning, and his liberality of thought. He has 
an impressive and graceful delivery, with vigor, 
eloquence, and great command of language. 
He has achieved remarkable mastery over the 
English language, his fluency and felicity of 
expression in which is quite wonderful in a 
gentleman of foreign birth. The New York 
Herald, of March 19th, 1871, in describing the 
" Pulpit Lights of Judaism," says of him : " He 
looks at every injunction of the law, every tra- 
dition of his race, and every ancient Jewish 
custom in the naked light of absolute logic. 
He accepts nothing until it has been adjudged 
acceptable by the unbiased decision of the 
intellect. He, so to speak, untwists the very 
fibres of theological dogmas, and holds fast 
only to such threads of divine light as seem 
agreeable to the spirit of the age and the genius of 
the people among whom he has been thrown." 

Mr. Gutheim was married in 1S5S to Emilie, 
daughter of I. I. Jone% a prominent merchant 
of Mobile, Ala., and has but one son, Meyer 
Gutheim, who is now studying law in the office 
of Hon. T. J. Semmes, of New Orleans. 

A specimen of Mr. Gutheim's metrical ver- 
sion of the Hebrew Psalms may serve as an ap- 
propriate conclusion to this biographical sketch. 

PSALM XXIII. 
1. 
The Lord's my shepherd evermore, 

I shall not want, nor e'er shall pine; 

By tranquil streams He'll place my store, 

On pastures sweet make me recline. 



He cheers my soul ; for His own sake 
He ever leads in virtue's wake. 



And though I walk through shades of death, 
Through silent vales of mortal gloom- 

I fear no harm from mould'ring breath, 
God is with me beyond the tomb. 

His rod and staff will surely be 

My comfort to eternity. 

III. 
My wants He kindly will supply, 

My table in His love prepare; 
Despite the glance of envy's eye 

God will sustain me in His care; 
He will with oil anoint my head 
And on my cup His blessing shed. 

IV. 
Thus grace and goodness will attend 

My journey to life's hidden shore, 
And happiness will crown.my end 

And be my portion evermore : 
For in God's house I shall abide 
And ever bless my heavenly guide. 



DR. WM. O. BALDWIN. 

Alabama. 

ILLIAM OWEN BALDWIN was born, 
August 9th, 1818, in Montgomery 
county, Ala., about four miles from the 
capital of the State. At that time 
Alabama had only recently been organ- 
ized as a Territory, and was not admitted into 
the Union until the following year; Montgom- 
ery, *sn old Indian town, was then called "Ala- 
bama town." His great-grandfather, a Virgin- 
ian by birth, settled in North Carolina, where 
he married Miss Owen, after whom numerous 
members of the Baldwin family have been 
named. Some years after his marriage he removed 
to Columbia county, Ga., where he raised three 
sons, who took part with their father in the 
Revolutionary war, and were present at the 
siege of Augusta, Ga. ; the eldest son David and 
himself returned home at the close of the war 
and died shortly afterwards. Of the two re- 
maining sons, Owen married Miss Wiley, and 





/^ ^T /C^XL^vSU^^t^ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



221 



many of his descendants are now resident in 
Mississippi ; and William, who was born in 
North Carolina, became a planter in Georgia, 
married Miss Elizabeth Kimbro, of that State, 
and was the grandfather of the subject of this 
sketch. Judge Abraham Baldwin, one of the 
signers of the Constitution of the United States, 
was a relative of his. William Baldwin, son of 
the preceding and father of Dr. Baldwin, was 
born in Georgia, and married Miss Cecilia Fitz- 
patrick, of Georgia, whose father was a member 
of the Georgia Legislature for nineteen consecu- 
tive years, and left nine children, of whom the 
eldest, Cecilia, was the only daughter, and the 
youngest, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, was afterwards 
Governor of Alabama, and subsequently United 
States Senator, which position he resigned when 
Alabama passed the ordinance of secession. 
William Baldwin's eldest son, Marion Augustus 
Baldwin, was born in Georgia, and removed 
with his parents into Alabama in 1816; he was 
Attorney-General of Alabama from 1847 to 
1865, and one of the ablest lawyers as well as the 
most popular man in the State. His father died 
when Dr. Baldwin was nine years of age, leav- 
ing his widow with seven children, of whom he 
was the second son ; he received his education 
at an academy in Montgomery county, near 
his mother's plantation, conducted by Adison 
H. Sample, a man of great reputation in his day, 
a splendid linguist and a finished scholar. At 
sixteen he commenced to read medicine in the 
office of Dr. McLeod, the leading physician in 
Montgomery, and shortly afterwards entered the 
Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., in 
which institution he became the private pupil of 
Dr. Charles Caldwell and Dr. L. P. Yandell, 
then in conjunction with the eminent surgeon 
and lithotomist, Dr. B. W. Dudley, professors 
in that university. At the unprecedented age 
of eighteen, he received his degree of M. D., a 
fact much regretted in after life when the im- 
portance of more extended study was more 
vividly realized. 

Some years afterwards, disagreements having 
arisen between the members of the faculty, the 
professors, with but few exceptions, resigned and 



established the Medical Department of the 
University of Louisville, and the Transylvania 
University became extinct. His mother having 
so large a family to raise unaided, was some- 
what cramped in her resources, and found it 
impossible to give more than one of her sons a 
university education, and to that the elder bro- 
ther was naturally entitled. William, however, 
had all but completed his arrangements to enter 
the University of Virginia, when the want of 
adequate means interposed, an obstacle which it 
was impossible to overcome. In 1837 he com- 
menced the practice of his profession in Mont- 
gomery, and in 1S40 entered into partnership 
with his former preceptor, Dr. McLeod, who 
died twelve months afterwards. Becoming on 
intimate terms with the distinguished Professor 
of Obstetrics, Dr. William M. Boling, a strong 
personal attachment sprung up between them, 
and after occupying the same office for some 
years, they formed a professional copartnership 
in 1848, which continued in force for four 
years, when their practice became so extensive 
that it was deemed best for their individual 
pecuniary interests, in the matter of consulta-. 
tions, etc., to separate, and the partnership was 
accordingly dissolved. Dr. Boling was a man 
of great learning, and perhaps of more sterling 
merit than any Alabama has produced. Dr. 
Baldwin and himself studied and labored to- 
gether for eleven years for the advancement of 
science, and he afterwards became Professor in 
Transylvania University, and subsequently at 
Memphis. At his death, in 1859, Dr. Baldwin 
delivered a touching eulogy over the grave of 
this noble and erudite physician. 

In April, 1847, Dr. Baldwin contributed to 
the A7ne7-ican Journal of the Medical Sciences 
some " Observations on the Poisonous Proper- 
ties of the Sulphate of Quinine." This paper, 
which contributed perhaps more to his reputa- 
tion than any article he ever wrote, created 
great attention, and was translated into several 
foreign languages, and is quoted as an authority 
not only in the English and French periodicals 
and their standard works on toxicology, but 
also in the United States Dispensary and the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



medico-legal works of this country. After re- 
porting a case in which convulsions, blindness 
and death followed the use of sulphate of qui- 
nine; and another in which the symptoms which 
succeeded the administration of the quinine bore 
a striking analogy to the first, although death 
was not the result, he records numerous experi- 
ments made upon dogs, which are affected by 
poisons exactly in the same way as human be- 
ings. Admitting that, under careful and proper 
administration, no single remedy is half so valu- 
able to the practitioner as that of quinine, he 
proves conclusively that when given in over- 
doses, it is capable of producing death. In 
December, 1849, ne delivered an address before 
the Alabama State Medical Association, over 
which body he afterwards presided, entitled : 
"Physic and Physicians." The range of the 
discussion is over a wide and fruitful field, em- 
bracing the intellectual, moral, social and pro- 
fessional position of physicians, and the benefi- 
cial relations of their science to the welfare of 
mankind. It is a manly and fearless defence of 
medical science from quacks and empirics of 
every description, and abounds in argument, apt 
illustrations and eloquent appeals in behalf of 
the dignity and claims of the medical profession. 
To Homoeopathy particular attention is paid, 
and considerable space is devoted to the expo- 
sure of its heresies and humbugs, but withal in 
a dignified and manly tone. He is mercilessly 
severe on dishonorable, unworthy or mercenary 
conduct on the part of the orthodox members 
of the profession, and handles empirics and 
empiricism of all sorts " without gloves." This 
address, although the first delivered in public by 
its author, was received with such marked favor 
by the members that it was printed by order of 
the association for general circulation, and re- 
viewed in the most complimentary terms by the 
medical journals and newspaper press. After 
dissolving partnership with Dr. Boling, Dr. 
Baldwin conducted the largest and most lucra- 
tive practice in Montgomery, reaching $15,000 
per annum, a very unusual income for a city of 
its size. During the civil war he still continued 
his practice, declining repeated offers of com- 



missions in the Confederate service, although 
he was frequently present on the field after the 
action attending the wounded as a volunteer 
surgeon. His eldest son, William Owen Bald- 
win, left the State University at Tuscaloosa, 
against his father's will, to join the army, and 
while Captain of the twenty-second Alabama — 
endeared to his comrades as the "boy-captain " 
of Deas' brigade— was killed at Franklin, Tenn., 
aged only nineteen years. The war over, Dr. 
Baldwin used his utmost endeavors to bring 
about a pacification between the two sections so 
bitterly estranged. During the terrible strife 
the members of the American Medical Associa- 
tion at their various meetings had repeatedly 
deplored the absence of their Southern brethren, 
and looked forward to the time when they would 
be again " one in their political, professional 
and social relations." At the annual meeting 
held in Washington, D. C, in 1868, the first 
since the beginning of the war at which dele- 
gates from the South had been present, only 
seven representatives from the Southern States 
attended out of an assemblage of about 500 
members. Dr. W. O. Baldwin was elected 
President as an evidence of the earnest wish of 
the association to hold out the right hand of 
fellowship to those so long estranged. Con- 
trary to usual custom the President elect deliv- 
ered a short address from the chair, which, from 
the admirable spirit in which it was conceived, 
and the pathetic yet manly manner in which it 
was delivered, touched to the quick the hearts of 
those present, and drew forth unqualified eulo- 
gium from men of all shades of opinion. He said : 
"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Amer- 
ican Medical Association : In returning you my 
sincere thanks for the honor you have conferred 
upon me in electing me to preside over the de- 
liberations of this body — an association which 
embraces in its relationship so many names 
justly distinguished over the civilized world for 
genius and learning — believe me, gentlemen, it 
is with feelings of embarrassment equalled only 
by my profound sense of gratitude and my ad- 
miration for the magnanimity which prompted 
the offering. It is the more grateful to me that 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



223 



it was the free, unasked-for gift of the associa- 
tion. I did not seek the position. High as the 
■honor is, I should deem it purchased at too dear 
a price if, in order to obtain it, it had been 
necessary for me to solicit the votes of any men 
from any section, even those from my own 
society. I am painfully conscious, gentlemen, 
of my own unworthiness of this high distinc- 
tion, and am not vain enough to appropriate the 
honor all to myself. I do not accept it as an 
individual compliment, but rather as the faithful 
hand of brotherhood stretched out with a gen- 
erous friendship and true nobility of soul in its 
desire to heal and obliterate the wounds in its 
own bosom for whose creation it was in no way 
responsible. Pardon me for taking this oppor- 
tunity for alluding briefly to a subject which has 
not perhaps heretofore been considered germaine 
to occasions like the present, and which I now 
approach with both pain and hesitation. I am 
sure that most of you have not failed to observe 
the very meagre representation which the asso- 
ciation has had from the Southern States since 
the close of the late war. This has probably 
been due to several causes, to only one of which, 
however, I desire to allude. I will not disguise 
from you, gentlemen, the fact that there are 
many physicians in the South disposed to hold 
themselves aloof from your councils. The reso- 
lution passed at your meeting in 1866, offering 
again the hand of fellowship to your Southern 
brethren, owing to the peculiar condition of our 
country at that time and the fact that but little 
of the medical literature and news of the North 
circulated with us, met the eyes but of few, and 
there are still among us those who feel that your 
hearts are yet steeled against them, and who be- 
lieve that, notwithstanding some formal declara- 
tions to the contrary, most of you, in your 
private feelings, have not yet been able to rise 
sufficiently above the prejudices of the past to 
enable you to receive them in such a manner as 
to make their presence here either agreeable to 
them or profitable to the association. Looking 
to this conviction of theirs, strengthened by the 
fact they are still under the cloud of the nation's 
displeasure, and denied the political rights to 



which they esteem themselves entitled, they have 
felt that it would be both undignified and un- 
manly to present themselves at your doors for 
admittance to your councils, or to offer to affili- 
ate with you until they can come as your peers 
in all things — in political and social rights, as 
well as in scientific zeal and devotion. So far 
as my observation has extended, I am sorry to 
know these sentiments have prevailed with 
many, and it is but frankness in me to say so. 
I am free to confess that I, with many others, 
have not sympathized altogether with these feel- 
ings. I saw the resolution adopted in 1866, and 
before referred to, inviting us in most respectful 
and conciliatory language to resume our places 
in this association. I felt this was all you could 
do, all you ought to do, all we could ask, and 
was satisfied with it, and only regret it did not 
obtain a more general circulation. The society 
to which I belong, with entire unanimity, ap- 
pointed its full quota of delegates to this meet- 
ing. I came here to lend my humble example 
to the work of re-establishing our former rela- 
tions. I never doubted I would be received 
with courtesy and even with kindness. The 
broad, liberal, and catholic sentiments pro- 
claimed from this stand in the annual address 
of that noble old Roman, our distinguished 
President, Dr. Gross, knowing in these halls 
' no North, no South, no East, no West ' — he 
whose clustering honors, though won in your 
midst, yet gather a beauty and brilliancy from 
the love and veneration in which he is held in 
the South — must be received as a declaration of 
sentiments and principles by this association, 
and cannot fail to correct the errors and mis- 
representations which have prevailed in our sec- 
tion. This action of yours to-day, in awarding 
through me as one of her humble representatives, 
the honorable and distinguished office of Presi- 
dent of this Association, a position which might 
well be claimed for one of the many of your 
own renowned and gifted sons, will, I am sure, 
testify to our brethren of the South, in silent 
but forcible language, the injustice which has 
been done you by those who have taken a dif- 
ferent view of your real sentiments and feelings 



224 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



towards us. In saying this much, I do not in- 
tend it as a reproach to those of my section who 
have hitherto so misunderstood you ; and you 
in your generosity I am sure are prepared to 
concede much to the pride of a noble manhood, 
who, standing amidst the memories of blasted 
hopes and ruined fortunes, have perhaps been 
disposed to guard with too jealous and sensitive 
an eye that which is dearer to them than for- 
tune or life itself, and which I am sure you 
would be the last to willingly see compromised 
— their personal and professional dignity and 
honor. For myself and for those I represent I 
grasp with unaffected pleasure the hand which 
you have so gracefully and magnanimously 
offered, and I hope and believe this sentiment 
will meet a ready response from all our brethren 
of the South. Let us again be united as friends 
and brothers. Ignoring past and present politi- 
cal differences, let us exhibit to this distracted 
country an example of forgiveness and tolera- 
tion worthy the emulation of a great and noble 
people. Let the bonds which we acknowledge 
here bind us in all portions of this broad land 
as a sacred brotherhood engaged in a common 
toil, -with one mind, one heart, and one purpose. 
Let the place annually selected for our meetings 
be our Mecca. There let us meet with harmony 
of sentiment for thorough organization, for con- 
nected and concerted action, without which no 
great science or art can ever attain its highest 
perfection. Exacting from each other only the 
qualifications necessary for honorable member- 
ship, let us there mingle in the sacred precincts 
of our humane profession, and join hands and 
sympathies in the strengthening influences of 
association and fellowship ; and, as we lay fresh 
offerings in the temple of a noble science and 
build new fires on her altars, let us cherish in 
our hearts the ennobling sentiment of brotherly 
love. In conclusion I would say we have doubt- 
less most of us — aye, certainly, most of us in the 
land of many sorrows from whence I come — 
tasted the bitter fruits of the bloody and unholy 
war through which we have passed and wept 
over its dire calamities. We, as an association, 
had no agency in its creation. It belongs now 



with all its disasters and miseries to the dead 
past, and, as we had no cause for quarrel then, 
we have none now for separation or estrange-* 
ment. We may not forget our sorrows for the 
past, and we will still water with our most 
sacred tears the graves of our noble sons who 
fell victims to the strife. But, whenever there 
is grief at the heart, a tear for the ashes of the 
past, let us wipe from it all traces of bitterness, 
and drape its memories, and sanctify its sadness 
with the manly and Christian virtues of charity, 
forgiveness, and fraternal love." This speech 
was copied into the public journals of every sec- 
tion of the country with but one expression of 
the strongest approbation for his patriotic en- 
deavor to heal the wounds of fraternal strife, 
and enable both North and South without loss 
of self-respect to shake hands over the bloody 
chasm and bury forever the bitter past. A well- 
known literary gentleman who was present — the 
Nestor of the medical literary world — meeting 
Dr. Baldwin afterwards asked to shake him by 
the hand, and said, "Your speech has done 
more and will do more towards reconciling the 
different sections than all the resolutions and 
reconstruction acts introduced, or speeches 
made in Congress since the war." 

Previous to the annual meeting of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association, held in New Orleans, 
in May, 1869, Dr. Baldwin, being desirous of 
securing a full attendance of the profession from 
all sections, addressed a letter to Dr. J. C. 
Nott, of New York, formerly of Mobile, in 
which he fully explained the sentiments of 
Southern physicians in regard to the association, 
and in return asked from Dr. Nott full informa- 
tion as to the feelings actuating the profession 
in the North. This correspondence was for- 
warded to Dr. E. S. Gaillard, Editor of the 
Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal, with 
a request for its publication, and is as follows : 

f Letter I.] 
"Montgomery, Ala., March 15M, 1869. 
" Dr. E. S. Gaillard, Editor Richmond and 
Louisville Medical Journal : 
"My Dear Sir: I send you this letter and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



225 



the enclosed correspondence between Dr. J. C. 
Nott and myself, for publication in your journal. 
You must pardon me, dear doctor, for the per- 
sonal allusion contained in this correspondence 
to yourself. From the fact that you were an 
active participant in the late war and suffered 
deeply by its results, and from the additional 
fact that you have occupied a prominent posi- 
tion in the medical profession before and since 
the war, I thought I might take the liberty of 
referring to you as a true representative of the 
professional sentiment of the South. For the 
same reason I addressed a communication to 
Dr. Nott (formerly of Mobile, now of New 
York), who, it is well known, was a staunch 
adherent of the Confederate cause ; who, at the 
advanced age of sixty years, gave up his pro- 
fessorship in a college to which he was devoted 
and of which he was the founder ; relinquished 
his large and lucrative practice and neglected 
his then ample fortune to take a commission in 
the army of the South ; serving in hospitals, in 
camp, on the march, in the front or wherever 
he was ordered, with all the devotion and faith- 
fulness of his enthusiastic and honest nature. 
He had but three children, all sons; one lost an 
arm in infancy ; the others, promising in a 
ripening manhood all that a father's heart could 
desire ; both of these went to the field at the 
first call for troops and both perished in the 
army. When such men as yourself and Nott, 
from the medical profession, and General Wade 
Hampton, from the head and front of the army 
— all representative men — men who have, in the 
time of her greatest need, rendered distinguished 
services to the South, who have been torn and 
mutilated in person, lacerated and crushed in 
affections, wrecked and ruined in fortune, can 
take the proffered hand ef friendship and urge 
conciliation, harmony and fraternization for the 
good of science and the welfare of the country, 
I think the personal allusion which I have made 
to you is pardonable, while it should put to the 
blush those few ' who still urge discord and 
alienation.' I do not think that a charge of 
egotism could lie against you in consequence of 
your publishing what I think or say of you. In 



justice to me you cannot omit the reference to 
you, for by so doing, you would manifestly de- 
feat one object of the letter. I have seen 
proper to use your name as a representative man, 
and in a manner to serve a purpose which is 
obvious throughout the letter, and the facts war- 
rant the allusion. 

" I am, dear doctor, very sincerely yours, 
"W. O. Baldwin, M. D." 

[Letter 2.] 

"Montgomery, Ala., March 2d, 1869. 
" Dr. J. C. Nott, New York : 

"My Dear Doctor: As you are aware, the 
next meeting of the American Medical Associa- 
tion is to be held in the city of New Orleans, 
on the first Tuesday in May next, and I write to 
urge you to be present on that occasion. Your 
numerous old friends in the South would be 
most happy to meet you there ; to shake you by 
the hand in this fraternal reunion, and to wel- 
come you again to the scenes of your morning 
life. It must be gratifying to you to know, my 
dear, good old friend, when, in your solitary 
moments, memory sometimes takes you back to 
the home of your youth (to review the inci- 
dents of almost a life-time spent in active and 
arduous professional duties), that your cotem- 
poraries here, who witnessed your devotion to 
the cause of science, whilst they appreciated the 
value of your labors, still hold in most affec- 
tionate remembrance that honorable courtesy 
and charity which ever distinguished your con- 
duct towards your professional brothers. I am 
glad to be able to say, my dear doctor, that the 
spirit of your example still lives with us and, I 
believe, will teach us from the grave ; will teach 
those who still labor in the fields you have left, 
when life with you shall have ended its hardest 
lessons. Nothing, I assure you, would give me, 
individually, more pleasure than to see your 
honest face on that occasion. It will be such a 
fitting time for you to meet us, and one which 
will probably never present itself again, when 
you could see so many of your old friends. My 
correspondence has been somewhat extensive 
during the past eight or nine months, and I feel 



226 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



justified in saying that the great mass of the 
profession South is in full accord and sympathy 
with the association. You may have seen some 
little dissatisfaction expressed in newspapers 
over a nam de plume, indicating the author to 
be a physician, but I assure you such sentiments 
are confined to but very few and have failed to 
reach the great heart of the profession. I was 
grieved, however, to see even this manifestation 
of opposition to the great representative interests 
of the medical profession of this country. It 
has no root and can bear no fruits in science or 
general beneficence. This dissatisfaction grew 
out of the action of the association at its meet- 
ing in 1S64, in relation to a preamble and reso- 
lutions introduced by Dr. A. K. -Gardner, of 
New York. These were, in fact, a remonstrance 
against the war ethics of the government, and, 
in substance, provided that the President of the 
United States, heads of departments, and mem- 
bers of the United States Senate be requested 
by the association to ' take such action as shall 
cause all medicines and medical and surgical 
instruments and appliances to be excluded from 
the list "called contraband of war."' The 
action taken on these resolutions by the associa- 
tion was to lay them on the table indefinitely, 
and which, in parliamentary parlance, I believe, 
means th#t it was ' not desirable to consider 
them ' at that time. From this action, some 
have contended that the association lent its in- 
fluence and support to sustain the government 
in this feature of its ethics of war. The beauti- 
ful preamble and resolutions referred to, as hav- 
ing been introduced by Dr. Gardner, are cer- 
tainly a. most graceful proof of a noble and 
generous mind, and must be regarded by all as 
the offspring of the purest and most unselfish 
charity and benevolence. Yet how far the 
language used by others in commenting upon 
this action of the association is justified by the 
facts ; how far this body lent its influence and 
support to the government in the policy com- 
plained of, or to what extent it committed itself 
to the principle, by laying these resolutions on 
the table, are questions which may very well 
admit of differences of opinion. No member 



can claim for the association exemption from 
fair, frank, and honorable criticism, and, when 
thus conducted amongst ourselves, or through 
the legitimate channels of medical periodicals, 
with moderate language and in a courteous and 
respectful temper, I can see no objection to it, 
and think it may in the end lead to harmony 
of sentiment and unity of purpose. I have been 
particularly grieved, however, to see that some, 
in their zeal to discuss the points above referred 
to, have resorted to the columns of newspapers 
(devoted to common and general politics) for 
this purpose. The public feel no particular 
interest in controversies like this, and, in tha 
language of our code of ethics, ' as there exists 
numerous points in medical ethics and etiquette 
through which the feelings of medical men may 
be painfully assailed in their intercourse with 
each other, and which cannot be understood or 
appreciated by general society, . . . publicity 
in a case of this nature may be personally in- 
jurious to the individuals concerned, and can 
hardly fail to bring discredit upon the faculty.' 
These injunctions, though applying to our daily 
intercourse with each other, are equally applica- 
ble to us in our associated and general relations. 
I am not prepared to say what the usages of 
modern warfare are on the points raised in Dr. 
Gardner's resolutions, or whether there are any 
recognized or established ethics among civilized 
nations on this subject. But that it is in accord- 
ance with the purest and. highest dictates of 
humanity for belligerent powers to allow the 
enemy's sick and wounded to be supplied with 
medicines and surgical appliances from within 
their own lines, when they cannot be otherwise 
obtained, I think none will deny, unless the 
supply be at a time when such action might 
thwart the movements or prejudice the safety of 
an army. And, if the duty of regulating such 
matters had been assigned to the American 
Medical Association, or even to the army medi- 
cal corps, and they had established or advised 
the establishment of an ordinance making these 
articles contraband of war, I should feel that 
their action had not harmonized with the spirit 
which lias ever characterized the conduct of our 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



227 



profession toward suffering humanity. This, 
however, was not the case, and I can very well 
imagine that those who voted against the asso- 
ciation taking the action urged in the preamble 
and resolutions referred to, could give good 
reasons which influenced them, at that particular 
time, to desire no complication with their gov- 
ernment upon a question, in the discussion and 
decision of which they were regarded as in no 
way authoritative, and the direction of which 
had been assumed by high government officials, 
who had long since established and practised a 
policy in reference to it. I assume, then, the 
broad ground that it was a question \vith which 
the association had nothing whatever to do, and 
one which was not properly before it for discus- 
sion ; and, it seems to me, that it was expecting 
too much of our Northern brothers to suppose, 
that they, at a time when all the sinews of war 
were called most vigorously into execution, 
would place themselves in antagonism to their 
government upon a question which was entirely 
outside of their professional position and ac- 
credited duties. In doing so they certainly 
would have been transcending their legitimate 
sphere and meddling with the prerogatives of 
those to whom the regulation of the ethics of 
war had been assigned, and who claimed exclu- 
sive jurisdiction over the question. Subjects of 
this kind certainly formed no part in the plan 
of their organization. They were there solely 
for the purpose of discussing questions purely 
scientific and professional, and not such as grow 
out of civilized warfare. 

" Whatever, therefore, was objectionable in 
the ordinance alluded to, the high functionaries 
of the government were alone responsible for it. 
It was a political and war measure with which 
the association had no more to do than did the 
Pope of Rome, or the worshipful grand master 
of a Masonic lodge, or any other humane and 
charitable individual, or Christian and benevo- 
lent organization, in the land. In fact, every 
man in Christendom was as much bound to re- 
monstrate with the government, for any violation 
of the rules of civilized warfare, as were the 
members of the association. It is a very serious 



and forced conclusion to say, that the associa- 
tion gave its influence and support to the gov- 
ernment to maintain it in this policy, simply 
because it refused at that particular juncture to 
enter its protest against it, by the adoption of 
these resolutions. If, as an association, they 
had assumed a vindictive or hostile attitude to- 
wards the South and advised the adoption of 
this or any other cruel or unjust procedure on 
the part of the Northern government, there 
would have been just reasons for complaint on 
the part of Southern physicians. This, however, 
was not the case. The association simply held 
itself firmly to its professional position, to its ac- 
knowledged sphere, to its accredited duties, and 
refused to go outside of that position to discuss 
a question which concerned that body no more 
than it did any private individual in the land. 
It is not wise, nor is it required by any creed 
of general courtesy or ethics, that honor shall 
always forbid that which honor fails to sanction. 
Men are not expected or required to denounce 
every measure of which they cannot approve. 
There are often good reasons why they should 
not. Are they, then, to share the odium of 
measures entirely foreign to their sphere and be- 
yond their, control? There is certainly much 
difference between the man who commits crime 
and him who fails to remonstrate with the crimi- 
nal ! As well might we reproach and rebuke 
the High Court of Chancery for failing to lec- 
ture the world on the subject of religion, the 
giving of alms to the poor, or for any other 
philanthropic work which might be calculated 
to lessen the woes and mitigate the sufferings of 
fellow-beings. Society, and especially govern- 
ments, have assigned to different individuals and 
classes their peculiar sphere and respective du- 
ties, and the world owes much of its harmony to 
this fortunate arrangement. We have our own 
code of ethics and etiquette, and our own stand- 
ard of morals, and, if we adhere strictly to these, 
we cannot interfere with the ethics of war es- 
tablished by ordinances of government. One 
of the great reconciling principles in the phi- 
losophy of life is a proper regard for the rights, 
duties and principles of others. Whilst, by the 



228 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



very nature of our calling, we are intimately 
connected with the interests of humanity, and 
should labor by every means rightfully at our 
command to promote its benefactions, we must 
be careful in our zeal for a good cause not to 
hazard the position and influence already gained 
by invading the precincts and prerogatives of 
others. The restraints and usages of govern- 
ments in times of war may seem to us, in many 
particulars, unnecessarily harsh, oppressive and 
cruel; and, indeed, what civilian ever witnessed 
the operation of martial law who could not find 
grave objections, both to its humanity and 
equity? But when these have been ordained by 
persons to whom we are only subordinate, we 
cannot be responsible for results, and should, in 
no way, share the odium, simply by failing to 
place ourselves in open antagonism to them. 
As long as we labor with all the professional, 
intellectual and moral efficiency at our com- 
mand, for the fulfilment of duties properly within 
our legitimate and recognized sphere, we shall 
have accomplished all the good for humanity 
that the world can reasonably expect or require 
of us. But even suppose the association did 
commit an error, in fact and in spirit, in failing 
to remonstrate with its government, as stated, 
where is the wisdom, at this day, of opposition 
to its future and permanent interests? Suppose 
that the feeble assaults which have been made 
upon it should swell into a hostility whose 
magnitude should in the end mar its progress, 
compass its disorganization, and defeat its claims 
to a grand nationality, who could receive credit 
for such a work ? Where would be the glory of 
success or the fruit of such victory? Could sci- 
ence, could humanity, could the country thank 
one for such a service ? What has brought the 
science of medicine to its present state of ad- 
vancement but the labor of intellects combined 
in organization ? Like the tiny insect which 
lays up its stores for the wants of winter, we too 
must acknowledge the great law which sanctions 
the wisdom of associated labor. The imperish- 
able grandeur and usefulness of all sciences owe 
their highest development to organized effort. 
The future glories of the science of medicine in 



this country lie embodied in powers yet latent 
in organization, and he who seeks to disturb 
this great element in its prosperity is no friend 
to progress. 

"The animus of the association has shown 
itself to be honorable and kind in every refer- 
ence made to its Southern members, during and 
since the war; honorable to itself, honorable to 
the profession, honorable, just and generous to 
the South. When I went to its last meeting (in 
Washington), I did so from a sense of duty and 
with the earnest desire of seeing the two sections 
united in their professional relations and pur- 
poses. I did not solicit any honors, and asked 
no man to vote for me for any office. Yet with 
a meagre representation from the South, they 
conferred upon me the highest office in their 
gift. I knew myself to be unworthy of the high 
distinction, and felt it was not intended for me. 
I knew it had a broader and higher significance 
than that of a mere tribute to personal and pri- 
vate ambition. I knew it to be in keeping with 
that kindly spirit displayed by the Northern 
delegates towards their Southern brethren 
throughout their 'Transactions,' and that it 
was but a fresh offering of the olive branch of 
peace. In this spirit I accepted it. No man 
asked me anything in relation to my political 
sentiments. I cannot boast of performances in 
the late struggle, but I have never disguised 
the fact from any one, that in all the earnest 
desires of the heart which constitute devotion to 
a cause, I yield to none in my loyalty to that 
which has gone down in the gloom of defeat, 
and for which those tender youths, your son and 
mine, fought side by side, and fighting fell for 
principles held dear by you and by me. I 
would not stultify myself on this point for all 
the honors which could be heaped upon me by 
the medical profession, or by any other class of 
men. Nor do I think my Northern brothers 
would respect me more for being false to my 
section. In the death of my boy I found the 
hardest heart-sorrow of my life, and the weary 
years which have since passed by have been 
powerless to still its anguish ; and yet I could 
but feel a mournful pride in a knowledge of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



229 



fact that he died on the field of glory, and true 
to the land which gave him birth. But the 
crushed affections and blighted hopes of the 
father, who has yielded a noble sacrifice to his 
country, as he sits in silent and sacred memory 
of his holiest grief, can find no relief by barbing 
the anguish of his heart with feelings of malice, 
hatred and revenge towards those who, in hon- 
orable combat, had been made the instruments 
of his sorrow. Natural affection does not re- 
quire this ; true manliness does not demand it. 
No, doctor, I do not wish to cherish feelings of 
bitterness with the memory of my son. I wish 
to forget all that is painful and harrowing to the 
heart, and to remember him as he was, the 
soldier, patriot and Christian, falling in honor- 
able warfare, and that the hand which sent the 
fatal ball which deprived him of life was that of 
some brave and generous spirit, moved by the 
same high purpose, the same stern sense of duty, 
the same devotion to principle and country 
which guided and actuated him. So far from 
entertaining sentiments of unkindness towards 
our brothers of the medical profession North, 
growing out of this affliction, my only feeling 
has been, that if any one of them had been near 
him in that dreadful hour, his highest care 
would have been to have drawn, if possible, the 
fatal ball from his breast and restored him to 
life and health. How unwise and unprofitable 
it is to seek to mingle the temper of partisan 
strife with the affairs of a great science ! If the 
gallant General Hampton, whose blood flowed 
so freely in the late war, and whose home, with 
the homes of his people, was consumed and 
made desolate by the flames of the Northern 
army, can speak gratefully of 'the spirit of con- 
ciliation, the magnanimity and kindness' of 
those 'who recognize us as no longer foes, but 
brethren,' can, for his country's good, declare 
his willingness to bury ' all past differences in 
one common grave,' to 'accept the right hand 
of fellowship ... so frankly extended,' and 
greet as a 'comrade' him whose hand 'so lately 
grasped the sword,' but now 'bears the olive 
branch of peace,' shall we be so sectional and 
prejudiced as to nurse feelings of hostility to- 



wards a brotherhood from whom we have ever 
received only evidences of marked kindness and 
honorable courtesy? If the talented and inde- 
pendent editor of the Richmond and Louisville 
Medical Journal, Professor E. S. Gaillard, who 
lost his right arm, when a medical director, in 
the discharge of his surgical duties on the field 
of battle, thus depriving him of all hope of fur- 
ther advancement in the special department 
which had been the choice of his youth, for 
which genius, education and a thorough method 
had so well prepared him, and to which the 
achievements of early manhood had already 
given such brilliant promise of successful am- 
bition — I say, if he can advise that we should 
cover over the past ' with the mantle of personal 
and professional charity,' that we should 'take 
the outstretched hand, accept the offer of friend- 
liness and reconciliation ; ' and that the recep- 
tion of the ' medical men of America,'' when they 
assemble in New Orleans, in May next, should 
be ' not only a hospitable reception, but a warm, 
a manly and a generous welcome, ' cannot those 
who never felt a wound, and can even jest at 
scars, lay aside feelings which can neither yield 
fruits to our noble science nor do honor to our 
manhood ? Is any one vain or weak enough to 
believe that our Northern brothers will derive 
an advantage from fellowship, union and har- 
mony which we will not share in an equal 
ratio? 

" Pardon me, dear doctor, for trespassing so 
long upon your valuable time. I know you will 
excuse it in the interest which you feel in the 
general prosperity of the medical profession of 
the whole country, and especially in the desire 
which you feel to see your Southern friends 
come fully up to their duty in meeting the hon- 
orable advances which have been made by our 
Northern brothers, looking to a complete and 
perfect fraternization. I think the American 
Medical Association is to be the power through 
which a greater good is to be accomplished for 
the profession in this country than has yet been 
achieved. On this point you may perhaps hear 
from me at some future time. I will only say 
now, that its organization had its inception 



230 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



chiefly in an idea which has not yet been real- j leading citizens gave me a public dinner, and 
i ze d — that of elevating the standard of medical \ the members of the profession a handsome re- 
education in this country. But I believe its j ception, at which I was presented with a piece 



labors in this direction will yet be felt and ac- 
knowledged. To this end, it must be national 
and represent the interests of the profession in 
every part of the country. Those who compre- 
hend the grandeur of its germ, appreciate full 
well the ultimate possibility of its nature, and 
will see to it that the inspiration which gave it 
birth shall be worked to a final and successful 
end. The advancement of science, the affec- 
tions of an enlightened brotherhood, the inter- 
ests of society and the good of humanity are all 
united with it, and from every section I have 
the most gratifying assurances of a determination 
to bury all other sentiments in the one great 
purpose of promoting harmony and concert of 
action, with the kindest feelings of fraternal 
regard. Assure our friends of the North of this, 
and tell them we desire to meet them in large 
numbers in New Orleans in May. 

"With assurances of the highest regard, be- 
lieve me, dear doctor, 

" Most sincerely and truly your friend, 
"W. O. Baldwin, M. D." 

[Letter 3.] 
" New York, No. 4 West Twenty-Second street. 
"March Sf/i, 1869. 
" W. O. Baldwin, M. D. : 

" My Dear Doctor : Your letter of the 2d has 
just come to hand. I hasten to reply by return 
mail. Whilst I am fully sensible that your kind 
feelings for me have tempted you to speak 
in terms of praise beyond my merits, I have 
the vanity to believe that you do not over- 
estimate my high sense of obligation to our 
noble profession ; my unceasing efforts to up- 
hold its dignity, and my endeavors to pro- 
mote friendly feelings amongst its members. 
I have always maintained that we could not 
deserve or command the respect of the world, 
unless we respected each other and preserved 
a proper esprit de corps. ■ When I was about 
to take my farewell of the people of Mobile, 
among whom I had lived for thirty years, the 



of plate, on which was engraved the name of 
every regular practitioner of the city. This, to 
me, was a crowning glory of a long career, as it 
was grateful evidence to me that my constant 
efforts to keep the members of the profession 
together in brotherly love and usefulness had 
not been in vain. You may well believe then, 
my dear friend, that your present efforts in the 
same good cause, on a wider field, meet my 
hearty approbation and sympathy. I have 
nothing to suggest in addition to your excellent 
letter, which covers the whole ground at issue ; 
it is temperate, honest, manly, and in every way 
becoming the high and responsible position in 
which you are placed. I doubt not it will be 
responded to by the profession, North, South, 
East and West, in the same spirit in which it 
was conceived. The construction you have given 
to the action of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, on the preamble and resolutions of Dr. 
A. K. Gardner, to which you refer, corresponds 
precisely with that I have heard expressed by all 
the members of the profession I have met at 
the North. The time of the association was 
fully occupied with matters that properly be- 
longed to it, and these resolutions trenched 
upon political or military considerations which 
were foreign to the business of the asso- 
ciation, which they could not influence. Any 
debate upon them might have led to un- 
pleasant remarks from some impetuous member, 
and it was, therefore, best to lay them on 
the table. If such resolutions had been laid 
before any hundred members of our profession, 
during the war, at the South, what, let me ask, 
would have been the result? There is a statisti- 
cal law that throws a certain per cent, of unwise 
heads into every assembly of this kind, and the 
less opportunity they have of talking, the better. 
" Now, sir, I beg leave to say a word of my per- 
sonal experience, since the war, at the North. 
Soon after the war closed, I was summoned to 
Washington as a witness in the Wirz trial, and 
seized the occasion to rim over to Philadelphia 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



to see what I could discover that was new in the 
way of books, instruments, practice, etc., we 
having been shut out from the world for four 
years. Not only did the medical gentlemen 
of Philadelphia receive me politely, but they 
seemed to feel as if they thought I might feel 
some delicacy in presenting my rebel face in 
their midst, and were more desirous than I had 
ever seen them, of treating me with hospitality. 
About a year ago, I came to pitch my tent in 
the city of New York, determined to ask no 
favors of the members of the profession, and 
not one of them can say that I ever solicited 
an introduction to him ; and yet, it would sound 
like egotism were I to tell of half the respect, the 
hospitality, and kindness I have received, both 
in and out of the profession in the city of New 
York. It is but justice to the faculty in New 
York to say that in tone, talent and attainment, 
it will compare favorably with that of the 
large capitals of Europe. But suppose we admit 
that the action of the association on the resolu- 
tions of Dr. Gardner was dictated by sectional 
and unchristianlike motives: this does not alter 
the case. The war is over ; our prosperity and 
happiness depend upon our return to the former 
status of the country, politically and socially; 
passion and prejudice should be laid in the grave 
with the half-million of brave men that have been 
buried in the bloody strife. The olive-branch 
has been gracefully and cordially tendered by 
our medical brethren at the North to those at 
the South, and it is your duty to accept it 
frankly and in good faith. The medical pro- 
fession has a great mission to fulfil. Medicine 
is not only a healing art, but is the mother of 
anatomy and physiology in their most extended 
sense ; of botany, chemistry, mineralogy, geol- 
ogy, etc. ; in fact, of all the natural sciences, 
from which have sprung the useful arts. It has 
been the great fountain from which have flowed 
the elements of civilization, from the foundation 
of the Egyptian empire to the present day. 
Now, my dear friend, will the medical profes- 
sion at the South be outdone in magnanimity? 
will they permit a petty pique, or even the 
remembrance of a great civil war, in which, 



perhaps, we were all to blame, to cross the 
path of science, and to mar a great enterprise 
like that of the Medical Association ? God 
forbid ! My many old friends must throw aside 
all minor considerations and come forward in 
sustaining your efforts to maintain the true 
honor of the South, the dignity of our profes- 
sion, and the cause of humanity. 

" Very truly your friend, "J. C. Nott." 

In May, 1869, the annual meeting of the 
American Medical Association was held at New 
Orleans, La., and Dr. Baldwin, as President, 
delivered the annual address, in which, referring 
to the absence of sectional prejudice among the 
medical profession, even during the heat of ac- 
tive warfare, he said : 

" To me, gentlemen, this occasion is one of 
solemnity and significance. Standing here in 
the great commercial metropolis of the South, I 
feel myself surrounded by men representing 
nearly every section of a country so lately ar- 
rayed in hostile strife. At a time when every 
other organization has been shaken to its centre 
by the passions of deadliest hate ; at a time when 
the most matured conservatism has been over- 
mastered by the vindictive fury which has 
swayed the popular mind ; at a time when even 
instinct has been treacherous to its ends, you 
have been drawn hither from homes far distant, 
over highways full of painful historic incidents, 
through territories watered by the blood and 
tears of a sorrowing nation, and you have as- 
sembled here as brothers and friends to unite 
your offerings to a common science. The 
mournful witnesses of this terrific struggle have 
confronted your eyes ; the shadowy phantoms 
still linger on the stage where these tragedies 
have been performed ; the air we breathe has 
not yet lost its echoing groans of dying heroism 
nor the pathetic anguish of sorrowing relatives. 
Amid these circumstances so sundering to the 
most sacred companionships of life, you have 
met in the spirit of Him who is this world's 
greatest and best Healer — that Divine One, who, 
opening and continuing his ministry of service, 
by curing all manner of diseases, finished its 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



majestic self-denial in the reconciliations of the 
cross. Eight years ago we were separated by 
civil war. That war engendered the bitterest 
feeling in every other national organization, 
whether scientific, political, or Christian; but 
the members of this association, without words 
of crimination or reproach for one another, as- 
sumed the respective places assigned them by 
the obligation of citizenship. Through the long 
and bloody contest which ensued, this associa- 
tion, in its resources, honor and renown, was in 
the keeping of our Northern brethren, and dur- 
ing those memorable years, when the sense of 
bitter wrong and burning hate filled all hearts, 
and when friendships and affections born of the 
hallowed ties of consanguinity sent their mes- 
sages — once of love and tenderness — at the 
point of the bayonet or through the cannon's 
mouth, what were the feelings which moved 
this association? At the first meeting, two 
years after the war began, they indulged only 
in expressions of profound regret that ' the 
brethren who once knelt with them at the same 
holy altar and drank with them at the same 
pure fountain had been separated from them by 
civil war, endangering thereby the claims of the 
association to an unselfish nationality, and rob- 
bing it of the presence and the counsel of many 
of its warmest adherents,' while praying at the 
following meeting that the period would soon 
come when we should again be ' one in our 
political, professional and social relations.' The 
same humane and catholic spirit continued dur- 
ing the war to mark the conduct of the members 
of this association. Each of the divided sec- 
tions met the tasks required by its respective 
position. But wherever found, whether sharing 
the hardships of the campaign or discharging 
the duties of private practice, they compre- 
hended the essential difference between what 
might prove on the one hand a transitory evil, 
and what on the other hand they knew would 
be a lasting good. Accordingly they remained 
the consistent representatives of a noble brother- 
hood. If they did not sink the patriot in the 
physician, they did not sink the physician in the 
patriot. The imperative instincts of each char- 



acter, true to its trusts and faithful to its require- 
ments, acted for themselves and in the direction 
of their own ends. Amid the shouts of battle 
and the shock of arms they raised themselves to 
the height and grandeur of their calling, and 
thus stood far above the embittered prejudices 
that encircled all other classes of men. So far 
from allowing the fugitive passions of the times 
to betray them from their professional allegiance, 
they vindicated their sagacity no less than their 
manliness by looking to the future — by contem- 
plating results not the less certain because re- 
mote, by regarding with thoughts chastened and 
subdued that state of man in which the interests 
of life and death meet together; and by consid- 
ering as paramount to all selfish motives the 
claims of that science with whose undisclosed 
mysteries they must yet wrestle for the well- 
being of mankind. Above all, they looked to 
the transcendent value of a virtue which should 
contrast in broad masses of light its purity and 
power with the corruptions and frailties of the 
hour, which should, by reason of its disinterest- 
edness, diffuse itself through the affections of 
nations, and reach, in the large outgoings of its 
sympathy, the hearts of generations yet unborn. 
When at last this dispensation of carnage ended, 
and whilst as yet the war-path was crimsoned 
with the blood or whitened with the unburied 
bones of our brethren, this association again 
met. Like the surges of the sea, dark, tumul- 
tuous, raging, though the storm has passed from 
the sky and fled beyond the horizon, the meaner 
instincts of hatred, revenge and persecution still 
swayed the multitude. The mob of fanatical 
intellect unappeased and the mob of popular 
passions thirsting for new strife joined their 
hands to prolong the wretched alienation. The 
avenging angel had lifted his brooding wings 
from the landscape, and cried, 'It is enough,' 
but now other vials of wrath seemed about to be ' 
poured forth on a land hopeless because helpless. 
You then met to pour oil on the unquiet waters. 
Here was scope for a statesmanship, aye, for a 
generalship, grander than any which the war 
had developed. Here was the best of oppor- 
tunities lo inaugurate a new epoch of fraternal 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



233 



sympathy. Nor were you unmindful of its 
solemn behests. True to your past professions 
of regret over our separation, you saw the vacant 
seats, in this association, of your Southern breth- 
ren, and, actuated by the higher instincts of 
manhood, and scorning the base ambition to 
degrade a fallen antagonist whom the saddest 
experience had taught the bitterest lessons of 
life, you set the nation an example of dignity, 
moderation and virtue to which no other organi- 
zation in the land has yet had the wisdom or the 
sensibility to rise. 

"Within a few weeks after the cessation of 
hostilities the association held its regular annual 
meeting in the city of New York, and there re- 
newed with manly sympathy its former expres- 
sions of kindness, inviting us to come again and 
be their brethren. I quote their own language 
on that occasion when I say : ' The unhappy 
feud which for years has divided the nation has 
ceased, and peace has come, we trust forever ; 
so we hope soon again to meet our members and 
delegates from the South on the platform of 
fraternization, and to this end we extend to 
them a cordial welcome.' At a subsequent 
meeting you repeated this sentiment in the fol- 
lowing language: 'We would fain meet again 
those from whom we have been separated, draw 
the mantle of forgetfulness over the past, renew 
to them the expressions of regard, and with them 
dedicate the hour and the occasion to the sacred 
cause of learning, friendship and truth.' And 
when, at the last meeting, we met our Northern 
brethren, how were we received? They met us 
as equals in the past and equals in the present, 
saying, in effect, if not in words: 'If quarrel 
we ever had, it is over; we have no. explanations 
to offer, no apologies to demand ; we know that 
we have done our duty; we feel that you have 
done no more, and that you would have been 
'unworthy your noble vocation had you done 
less; we have guarded faithfully the institution 
so long left in our charge, in which we now 
claim but an equal interest with you ; with the 
incense which we have burned in its sacred fane 
we have not permitted the poisonous spirit of 
party to mingle, and we now invite you to go 



with us to the smiling and peaceful fields of that 
science whose interests it shall be our common 
work to foster and advance ; here we will walk 
with you to the stern realities and sublime gran- 
deur of labor and thought, and find in their 
quiet paths a relief from the gloom of the past ; 
here we will divide with you the toils and share 
with you the rewards of labor, the labors of suc- 
cess.' Against the insolence of the day; against 
its unreasoning pride, its overweening vanity 
and shamelessness, your conduct bore a moral 
protest, which, while acting directly on our pro- 
fession, has had no small agency in producing 
those indications of a return to reciprocal senti- 
ments of confidence and respect in which all 
the good men of the country rejoice. The 
mythical war between the Athenians and Ama- 
zons led, in the midst of arms, to the most inti- 
mate friendship between the leaders. AVhen 
Pirithous and Theseus finally met on the plains 
of Marathon, after many a hard-fought battle, 
the former, regarding himself and army as cap- 
tors, said to the latter: 'Be judge thyself; what 
satisfaction dost thou require?' The noble 
Athenian replied: 'Thy friendship,' and they 
swore inviolable fidelity, and were ever after 
true brothers-in-arms. Alas ! that the nineteenth 
century has so often to recur to classical heath- 
enism to find its illustrations of genuine mag- 
nanimity. Looking at these facts, am I not 
warranted in asking if any organization has 
emerged from our late convulsions with so much 
dignity? Has it not come forth from the sharp 
ordeal with those graceful virtues that belong to 
our higher nature? The world may have its 
conventional rules of intercourse between man 
and man — its creed of moral philosophy — its 
code of honor, its accredited formula of be- 
havior, while it lavishes its praise on the charms 
of human brotherhood ; but it has been left to 
the American Medical Association to teach prac- 
tically the intellects of the land one of the most 
ennobling lessons on the dignity, beauty and 
glory of refined and civilized life : a lesson that 
not only hallows the spirit of our professional 
character, but instructs the physician in those 
spiritual sentiments which lead to the highest 



234 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



virtues, among which are reckoned charity and 
forgiveness. Of the one we are told that the 
archangel, who never knew the feeling of hatred, 
has reason to envy the man who subdues it ; 
while of the other it is said, that when we prac- 
tise forgiveness to the man who has pierced our 
heart, he stands to us in the relation of the sea- 
worm, that perforates the shell of the muscle, 
which straightway closes the wound with a 
pearl." 

After thus dwelling on the moral spirit of the 
association, he proceeded to discuss the subject 
of Medical Education, the elevation of which 
was the chief object for which, the American 
Medical Association was organized. He con- 
trasts at length the lax system of medical educa- 
tion tolerated in this country with the thorough 
and systematic course required of the student by 
the European system, and points out that the 
fundamental error in the American system is the 
defective nature of the preliminary education, 
and urges a reform in medical colleges which 
shall establish " a uniform and elevated standard 
of requirements for the degree of M. D." He 
advocates the establishment of one or more 
National Medical Schools or Universities which 
should confer such distinctions and privileges 
as would be proportionate to the superiority 
they demand, and such as would make the at- 
tainment of their diploma an object to the am- 
bition of those who engage in the study of 
medicine ; the chairs to be open to all aspirants, 
and the appointment or election of professors to 
be so guarded as to secure the very highest tal- 
ents, fhe most profound learning, with the most 
fully demonstrated capacity for teaching. The 
salaries of the professors to be large and not de- 
pendent upon the number of students, and the 
Federal government to assume a proper share 
of the expenses incurred. 

On the motion for adjournment, he delivered 
the following address, which was unanimously 
ordered to be published in the minutes of the 
association : 

"Gentlemen: Before I submit the motion 
just made, and which, when adopted, will prac- 
tically close my official relations to this body, 



allow me to return yo* my most cordial and 
grateful thanks for the unvarying kindness 
which I have received at your hands. What- 
ever my future lot in life may be, the world 
holds no honors which to me can equal those 
conferred by you. The fraternal good-will 
which has so conspicuously marked your delib- 
erations has been to me a matter of infinite sat- 
isfaction and pride, and will not be the least 
among the grateful memories which will gladden 
my heart as I may hereafter review the incidents 
of my official connection with you. 

" To win your judgment and approval, to 
hold up the dignity of fellowship, the usefulness 
of association, and the interest and prosperity 
of the profession at large, have certainly occu- 
pied my most anxious thoughts since my eleva- 
tion to this position ; yet to cherish and pro- 
mote the intimate and cordial relations of 
friendship between the individual members of 
this association against all sectional distinctions 
or geographical lines has also been among the 
chief objects of my ambition and the earnest 
desires of my heart. Could I now believe that 
my efforts have contributed in the slightest de- 
gree to enlarging that harmony of sentiment 
and fraternal feeling which has been so apparent 
throughout this meeting, I should feel that I had 
commenced at least to make some return for the 
great honor and kindness received at your hands. 

"It now only remains for me, gentlemen, to 
again express to you my thanks, to wish you a 
safe return to your homes and labors, a happy 
reunion with your friends and families, and to 
pronounce that sad word, over which the heart 
of friendship would fain linger, as I bid you an 
affectionate farewell." 

In March, 1870, at a banquet following the 
meeting of the Alabama State Medical Associa- 
tion, Dr. Baldwin, grouping together the noble 
names of the deceased members in one common 
association of worth and excellence, paid a 
manly and appropriate tribute to their personal 
virtues and scientific attainments, and concluded 
by saying : 

"It is wise for us, as we look upon the 
vacant places of these worthies, to ston in the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



235 



midst of our festivities and contemplate the 
character of such men — to drop the tear of 
affection and esteem upon their memories, and 
to point. to them as examples worthy the emula- 
tion of the junior members of this association, 
who must hereafter fill their places in giving 
character and direction to its proceedings. In 
all ages, in all countries, in all professions or 
callings, the man of genius, or the good man 
who dies, leaving the world wiser, better, for 
having lived, receives the homage and tears of 
the cotemporaries who survive him. If this be 
true of other callings, how much more so should 
it be with us when, as is too often the case, our 
men die of diseases entailed through their efforts 
to mitigate the sufferings of others." 

At the meeting of the American Medical As- 
sociation in Philadelphia, in May, 1872, Dr. 
David W. Yandell, the President, delivered an 
address, in which he advocated a system of 
medical education diametrically opposed to that 
recommended by Dr. Baldwin. This address 
was reviewed by Dr. Baldwin in the New York 
Medical Journal of October, 1872, in scathing 
terms, as a weak and specious plea for cheap 
medical schools. He ridicules Dr. Yandell's 
preference for the American cross-roads doctor, 
for whose "rugged utility" the doctor had not 
hesitated to declare that he would exchange the 
cultivated method of the learned and accom- 
plished physician of Germany. He vigorously 
combats Dr. Yandell's assertion that "clinical 
instruction should be the alpha and omega of a 
medical education," and that "in the midst of 
these clinical demonstrations, physic is to be 
learned, and .not by going to universities." 
As a literary production, however, he compli- 
ments very highly Dr. Yandell's address, and 
pays a glowing tribute to Dr. Yandell's father, 
to whom Dr. Baldwin, as his pupil, was always 
deeply attached. At a meeting of the American 
Medical Association held in Louisville, Ky., in 
May, 1875, m response to the address of Dr. 
Bowditch, of Boston, Dr. Baldwin made the 
following remarks, which were highly eulogized 
by the press throughout the country : 

"Mr. President: I am glad to say to the 



gentleman who has just taken his seat that long 
since Alabama shook hands with Massachusetts 
in fraternal reunion. I wish to renew the 
pledges of fraternal regard to-day, and with him 
express my high appreciation of the magnificent 
and almost boundless hospitality extended to 
our brotherhood by the resident physicians and 
citizens of Louisville. So conspicuous has been 
the fraternal good feeling which has met and 
mingled in all our meetings, largely through 
their actions, that I feel more than ever like ex- 
claiming with De Wilton, when his lady-love 
had buckled on his spurs for the bloody field of 
Flodden : 

" ' Where'er I meet a Douglas, trust 
That Douglas is my brother.' 

"Gentlemen, physicians of Louisville, I 
thank you, and through you the good citizens 
of your fair city, for your efforts in cementing 
the social bond of union which binds our bro- 
therhood. By your hearty welcome, by your 
generous hospitalities, by your graceful courte- 
sies, you have won the hearts of all whose good 
fortune it was to be here, and as a Southern man, 
and as an American, I wish to thank you. I 
wish to express my great gratification in meeting 
on this occasion so many of our professional 
brothers of the North — and when I say of the 
North, I mean from all those States against 
which the South has been so recently arrayed in 
arms. And, sir, I am not using a mere phrase 
or form of speech, but speak the sincerest senti- 
ments of my heart when I express for these gen- 
tlemen my profound respect, admiration, esteem, 
and fraternal regard. The attitude of manly 
courtesy and kindness which they uniformly 
maintained towards their professional brothers 
of the South during the unfortunate struggle 
through which our country has passed could not 
have failed, I am sure, to excite the admiration 
of all who had opportunities to observe it. 
Avoiding in their proceedings when they held 
entire control of this association, all unpleasant 
allusion to sectional controversies, whilst they 
proved themselves true to their accredited duties, 
they were yet ever faithful to the sympathies and 
courtesies of brotherhood. The enlightened 



236 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



patriotism which made them recognize the virtue 
taught in the lines — 

" ' Lives there a heart with soul so dead 
Which never to itself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land—' 

also taught them to respect that still dearer 
sentiment of the heart which esteems it no 
crime to cling to home before country, and 
which feels that there is an allegiance higher 
than patriotism due to firesides, to home-altars, 
and to household gods. Rising above the angry 
passions of the day with the loftiest instincts of 
human nature, the flush of victory did not 
betray them into acts calculated to embitter our 
past history or prolong our separation in the 
future. But with a kindness and cordiality un- 
mistakable, they invited us, as soon as the 
bloody sword was sheathed, to resume our 
places in the association, and with a grace and 
wisdom worthy a position for the exercise of the 
highest statesmanship, have ever since received 
and treated us as their brothers and their peers. 
I never shall forget that, in the hour of our 
deepest calamity, when our country, resting 
from a fratricidal step, was still lashed by the 
fury of sectional hate, when a victorious army, 
leaning upon the dripping sword, was still 
urged to acts of new aggression by an em- 
bittered and maddened populace, the first voice 
of fraternal love and interest that reached the 
ears of the South came from the medical men of 
the North — members of this association, and in 
their associated capacity. Had the politicians 
or those who led popular opinion all over the 
two sections been moved by the same wise, 
generous and manly spirit, long since our miser- 
ably divided country had been of one mind 
and one heart, as I trust we are to-day. In 
Scotland's feudal wars, when royal James was 
heard to exclaim that he would give his fairest 
earldom to bid Clan Alpine's chieftain, so late 
his arch-enemy, and then a mortally wounded 
prisoner within his gates, live, that monarch 
conquered, through the power of magnanimity 
and the influence of kindness, a victory over the 
hearts of a rebellious people which legions of 



Highland blades had failed to achieve. And in 
thus bringing a peace, in fact as well as in name, 
to his worn and distracted people, he brought 
higher honors to Scotland's king, than as Snow- 
down's Knight he had ever won for Rod- 
eric Dim. And now, to you, our brothers of 
the North, I would say, in thus illustrating by 
your own beautiful example this touching inci- 
dent in historical romance, it was then that you 
exhibited a wisdom which, for the good of our 
whole country, might well have been imitated 
by your statesmen. It was then that you 
showed your true nobility of soul ; it was then 
that you revealed the genuine instincts and 
impulses of a true manhood ; and, gentlemen, 
permit me to say that it was then that you gave 
us the right to love you as we do to-day. ' ' The 
references to the war and the decoration of 
the graves of both Confederate and Federal 
armies brought the moisture to the eyes of 
almost every one present. Dr. Gross was then 
loudly called for, but, after a few sentences, was 
so overcome with emotion that he was obliged 
to beg to be excused. All present were much 
affected, and there were but few in the audience 
whose eyes did not glisten with tears. 

In March, 1877, Dr. J. Marion Sims, the 
distinguished gynsecologist and founder of the 
Woman's Hospital of New York, after an 
absence of twenty-five years, paid a visit to 
Montgomery. A reception committee of the 
Medical and Surgical Society of Montgomery 
welcomed him to the city, and invited him to a 
banquet given in honor of his arrival. Dr. 
Baldwin, as the only one left of Dr. Sims' con- 
freres when he commenced his medical career in 
that city, and his intimate associate and com- 
panion, was selected by the society to receive 
the distinguished guest. After expressing the 
great pride which the members of the medical 
profession of Alabama felt in the renown which 
Dr. Sims had won since leaving its borders, 
and reminding him that he would recognize but 
few whom he had been accustomed to meet in 
former years, he said : 

" Sir, we claim you as an Alabamtan. South 
Carolina may assert the honor of having rocked 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2 37 



the cradle of your infancy and of having nur- 
tured your boyhood, but it was here, in Mont- 
gomery, that your greatness had its first dawn- 
ing. It was here that your genius found its 
earliest expression, and it was here it first took 
its flight and asserted its claims to the applause 
of strangers. It was here that your sleepless 
industry, your anxious toil, and your sublime 
fidelity to purpose carved out those surgical 
devices and appliances which have made your 
name so justly famous, and it was here that you 
first reduced those inventions to that practical 
utility in the treatment of the surgical diseases 
peculiar to females, which has not only chal- 
lenged the admiration of the great and learned 
in your own profession, but has also won the 
homage of the crowned heads of Europe, and 
made your name a familiar word in all the great 
capitals of the civilized world. It is surely no 
small honor or trifling subject for pride and con- 
gratulation to the State which claims to be the 
mother of your early manhood, to see that the 
enlightened courts of the old world, with their 
splendid civilization, have recognized the vast 
resources of your genius, and the importance of 
those great discoveries, which have justified 
them in ranking your name among those of the 
foremost men of the age, and in conferring upon 
you honors, titles and decorations due only to 
those who by their achievements in science, 
literature, art, or statesmanship have accom- 
plished some grand purpose in life, or conferred 
some lasting benefit on mankind. It is, there- 
fore, eminently proper, upon your visit to the 
home of your youth, after an absence of so many 
years, that your early companions, associates, 
and friends of the medical profession, should 
desire to greet you, and pay you that homage 
which is so justly your due. We wish, sir, to 
congratulate you upon the success of your labors 
and the usefulness of your life, as well as upon 
the splendor of the fame which these have given 
you. Indeed, sir, to those who, like myself, are 
familiar with the difficulties and struggles of 
your early professional career, the grand success 
of your life would seem almost as a romance, were 
it not for the solid and lasting benefits it has 



conferred upon humanity. ... In conclusion, 
sir, permit me to say, that if your achievements 
within the domain of science or if your exalted 
worth as a benefactor of your race should here- 
after rear the monumental marble to perpetuate 
your name as a great physician, still those 
simple, unaffected, kind and genial qualities of 
the heart, so peculiarly your own, and so well 
remembered by the companions of your youth, 
will ever, with them, constitute the charm and 
glory of your life as a man." In his reply Dr. 
Sims, in referring to the fact that Dr. Baldwin 
and he were the only survivors of the men of 
1840, said : " You are many years my junior, and 
I hope and pray that you may long live to 
advance the science you have done so much to 
improve, and dignify the profession you have 
done so much to adorn, and to exert among 
your brethren the benign influence that has 
characterized your whole life." In January, 
1878, Dr. Baldwin was again elected President 
of the Montgomery Medical and Surgical Soci- 
ety, and delivered a masterly address, full of 
wisdom and thought worthy of the profoundest 
statesman. 

In 1870, Dr. Baldwin, in seeking an invest- 
ment for part of his ample fortune, decided to 
employ a portion in banking operations, and 
accordingly inaugurated and organized the 
First National Bank of Montgomery, in which 
he is the largest shareholder ; in compliment to 
his great business capacity, and in consequence 
of the universal confidence in his personal in- 
tegrity and high character, he was elected Presi- 
dent by the shareholders, and the high position 
held by the bank is convincing proof of the care 
he has taken of their interests. Although he 
does not now seek practice, he still attends a 
large family connection, and is much sought 
after in consultation. He became distinguished 
as a practitioner of medicine in Montgomery in 
successful competition with such eminent men 
as Aimes, Boling, Marion Sims, Bozeman, and 
Berney, and though giving no special attention 
to surgery has performed most of the capital 
operations, and has never permitted a case to 
pass out of his office without making an attempt 



2 3 8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



for its relief. As an obstetrician, he holds the 
highest rank, and has devoted more time to that 
department than to any other of his profession : 
in the number of the Richmond and Louisville 
Medical Journal for April, 1872, he published a 
paper on "Irrigations of Ice-water as a Means 
of Arresting Hemorrhage in cases of Placenta 
Praevia," in which he reports a case of praevial 
placenta, where both mother and child were 
saved by the free use of this agent, and strongly 
recommends its use in similar cases. Among 
his contributions to medical literature may be 
mentioned " Remarks on Mustard Poultices, ap- 
plied extensively to the Surface," published in 
the Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 
January, 1845; "Remarks on Trismus or Te- 
tanus Nascentium, and on its identity with Trau- 
matic Tetanus in the Adult," American Journal 
of the Medical Sciences, October, 1846; "Ob- 
servations on the Poisonous Properties of the 
Sulphate of Quinine," American Journal of the 
Medical Sciences, April, 1847; "Observations 
on Spotted Fever," American Journal of the 
Medical Sciences, October, 1866; "Case of 
Glanders in the Human Subject," read before 
the Montgomery Medical and Surgical Society, 
1868 ; and " Irrigations of Ice-water as a Means 
of Arresting Hemorrhage in cases of Placenta 
Prsevia," Richmond and Louisville Medical 
Journal, April, 1872. He is Associate Fellow 
of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; 
honorary member of the Gynaecology Society 
of Boston ; member of the American Medical 
Association, of which he was President in 1869 ; 
member of the Medical Association of the State 
of Alabama, of which he has been President ; 
member of the Medical and Surgical Society of 
Montgomery, and several times its President. 
Dr. Baldwin was married, December 7th, 1843, 
to Mary Jane Martin, daughter of Judge Abram 
Martin, originally of South Carolina, and, sub- 
sequently, Judge of the Circuit Court, Mont- 
gomery. This excellent lady, after a long and 
painful illness, breathed her last, September 
18th, 1878. She had long been a resident of 
Montgomery, her honored father having re- 
moved to that city while she was yet in the 



bloom of early womanhood. There she was 
married, there her children were born, and 
there, all along those changing years, the light 
of her beautiful life, devoted to duty and good 
deeds, shone with a sweetness and loveliness 
that can never fade from the hearts of those who 
knew and loved her. In all the land there was 
not to be found a woman truer in all the rela- 
tions of life. She never grew weary of well- 
doing. She was an humble and loving Chris- 
tian. Indeed, such was her modesty, such her 
humility, such her love and care for others, she 
little cared for self. She cared not for the ap- 
plause and praise and fashion of the world. 
Duty and love — love of husband and children, 
love of country, love of friends, love of her 
Saviour and His church — these were the holy 
motives that ceased not to move her trusting 
heart. Since the death of her noble soldier 
boy, who at the head of his men received his 
death-wound at the bloody battle of Franklin, 
she seemed to walk in the shadow of a great 
grief. And yet such was the light that shone 
along that way of sorrow — light from the gates 
of glory — she never seemed to wish to move out 
of its hallowed path. Indeed, for these long 
years her path was as the shining light that 
shineth more and more unto the perfect day. 
She possessed all the attributes of mind and 
heart that enter into the composition of the 
highest type of female excellence, and to her 
wise counsel, noble example, and appreciative 
sympathy, her husband is indebted for many of 
the nobler aims of his career. She loved her 
country, and her devotion to the Southern cause 
was intense and absorbing. To the sick and 
wounded soldiers she was a tender and devoted 
nurse, and many of the heroes in gray confined 
in the hospitals received at her hands those 
soothing ministrations that only a true woman 
can bestow upon the sick and dying. To the 
poor she extended an open hand, and no object 
of charity ever sought her aid in vain, or went 
away empty-handed. Dr. Baldwin has six chil- 
dren living. Of his sons, Marion Augustus 
Baldwin is a young lawyer and an accomplished 
scholar; and Abram Martin Baldwin has lately 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



239 



left the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 
One daughter is the wife of G. W. Craik, son 
of the Rev. James Craik, of Louisville, Ky. , 
while the Misses Mary and Cecil, with the 
youngest, Alma, a child of ten, reside with 
their father. 

Montgomery may feel justly proud of the 
long line of eminent physicians and surgeons 
who have honored her by their fame, and none 
of that brilliant band have attained greater emi- 
nence than Dr. W. O. Baldwin. A cotem- 
porary of Aimes, J. Marion Sims, Boling, and 
others scarcely less eminent, he has outlived all 
but the distinguished gynaecologist, and is to- 
day without a peer as' the leading physician in 
Alabama. He is in the best and grandest sense 
a representative Southern gentleman, with all 
that name implies of lofty moral character, re- 
fined and cultivated mind, spotless integrity, 
and warm-hearted generosity. Eminently con- 
servative as a physician, his advice is sought by 
all sections of the profession, and in consulta- 
tion his opinion is deemed indispensable. As 
an obstetrician, he is unrivalled in the South, 
and has no superior in this country. With 
strong personal magnetism, remarkable judg- 
ment, and ability to control his fellow-men, he 
has done more to cement the profession of his 
native State and to draw together all sections 
of the Union estranged by fratricidal strife than 
any man living. Extensively read in all de- 
partments of literature and science, and with a 
cultivated literary taste, his well-balanced mind 
and prudent habits have preserved his mental 
and physical vigor in a remarkable degree, and 
his warm heart and genial social qualities have 
endeared him to a large circle of friends and 
admirers in all parts of the Union. 

GENERAL WHEELER. 

Alabama. 

OSEPH WHEELER was born at Au- 
gusta, Ga., September 10th, 1836. His 
father, Hon. Joseph Wheeler, an old 
and respected citizen of that city, gave 
his son every educational advantage 




possible in the best schools of that period. 
William H. Wheeler, who organized the first 
Georgia company for the war, and whose life fell 
a sacrifice to the hardships of a winter campaign 
in Virginia, was a brother of the subject of this 
sketch. Joseph Wheeler entered the Military 
Academy at West Point, July 1st, 1854, being 
placed in a class having a five years' course, 
which thus afforded him an extra year's study at 
the academy, from whence he graduated July 
1 st, 1859. He was made Brevet Second Lieu- 
tenant of Dragoons, and assigned for duty at 
the Cavalry School, Carlisle, Pa., and from 
thence was ordered to New Mexico, where he 
was stationed successively at Forts Union, Craig 
and Fillmore, and engaged in several important 
expeditions against the hostile Indians. In 
February, 1861, foreseeing that war was immi- 
nent, he resigned his commission in the United 
States army and returned to Augusta, Ga. , 
where he was commissioned First Lieutenant of 
Artillery in the Confederate States army and 
stationed at Pensacola, Fla. He shortly re- 
ceived his promotion as Colonel of the Nine- 
teenth Alabama regiment, and at Shiloh, where 
he had two horses shot under him, was so con- 
spicuous for his gallantry that he was recom- 
mended by the commanding general for promo- 
tion to- Brigadier-General. In the many conflicts, 
including the fight at Farmington, Miss., by 
which the Federal advance upon Corinth was 
contested, the brigade which he commanded 
bore a prominent part. Upon the evacuation 
of Corinth his brigade was selected as the rear- 
guard. In the latter part of July, 1862, he was 
placed in command of the cavalry of the army 
of Mississippi, and in four days after taking 
command had penetrated the Federal lines, 
destroying bridges on their line of communica- 
tion near Bolivar and Jackson, Tenn., and hav- 
ing several successful fights with the enemy's 
cavalry and capturing a small train with a num- 
ber of horses and mules. A large Federal force, 
twenty times his number, was sent to capture 
him, but he brought his command back in 
safety. During the Kentucky campaign his 
gallantry and the brilliancy of his charges at 



240 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Mumfordsville elicited the admiration and com- 
pliments of the enemy, and at the battle of 
Ferryville, by his stubborn resistance, he kept 
back, during the day, an entire corps of the 
Federal army. General Polk, in his official 
report, commended his gallantry for leading a 
charge in which a battery and a number of 
prisoners were taken.. On the retreat from 
Kentucky he was appointed by General Bragg 
Chief of Cavalry, and, with a force not at any 
time exceeding one thousand men, so ingeni- 
ously and successfully guarded the rear of the 
army that the infantry were never called upon 
to fire a musket. General Buell, whose army 
General Halleck in his annual report stated to 
be one hundred thousand strong, and who was 
severely censured and relieved of his command 
for allowing General Bragg to escape from Ken- 
tucky, stated officially, that Bragg' s rear was 
covered by cavalry more skilfully handled than 
had ever been known under similar circum- 
stances. During this campaign Colonel Wheeler 
met the enemy in no less than thirty successful 
fights besides innumerable skirmishes, and upon 
the combined recommendation of Generals 
Bragg, Polk, Hardee and Buckner, was commis- 
sioned Brigadier-General and sent to Middle 
Tennessee. He was stationed at Lavergne, 
fifteen miles in front of the Confederate army, 
and sallied forth almost daily, frequently cap- 
turing foraging parties with their trains. In one 
of these engagements his horse was torn to 
pieces by a cannon-ball, his aide-de-camp killed 
at his side and himself painfully wounded by a 
fragment of a shell. During two months he was 
engaged in twenty distinct fights besides numer- 
ous skirmishes, and exhibited so dauntless a 
spirit that his soldiers gave him the soubriquet 
of the Little Hero. On the morning of the 26th 
December, 1862, General Rosecrans commenced 
his advance, and for four successive days Gen- 
eral Wheeler manoeuvred his command so as to 
hold the enemy in check until the Confederate 
army was prepared to grapple with him on the 
banks of Stone river. He took an active part 
in the battle of Murfreesboro, charging again 
and again upon the enemy's long lines, discon- 



certing General Rosecrans' plans and causing 
him to detach a large force from the front of his 
army. General Bragg, in his official report of 
the battle of Murfreesboro, says : 

" To the skilful manner in which the cavalry, 
thus ably supported, was handled, and the ex- 
ceeding gallantry of its officers and men, must 
be attributed the four days' time engaged by the 
enemy in reaching the battle-field, a distance 
of only twenty miles from his encampments, 
over fine macadamized roads. On Monday 
night General Wheeler proceeded, as ordered, 
to gain the enemy's rear. By Tuesday morning, 
moving on the Jefferson pike around the enemy's 
flank, he had gained the rear of their whole 
army, and soon attacked the trains, their guards 
and the numerous stragglers. He succeeded in 
capturing hundreds of prisoners and destroying 
hundreds of wagons loaded with supplies and 
baggage. After clearing the road he made his 
entire circuit and joined the cavalry on our left." 
Then making mention of two other successful 
movements made by General Wheeler to the 
enemy's rear, he closes his report by saying : 
" General Wheeler was pre-eminently distin- 
guished throughout the action, as well as for a 
month previous, in many successful conflicts 
with the enemy." After the battle of Murfrees- 
boro General Wheeler was engaged in destroy- 
ing the Federal lines of communication : nine 
large transports laden with supplies and an iron- 
clad gunboat were captured and burnt on the 
Cumberland river, while at Ashland immense 
supplies, covering several acres of ground, were 
destroyed. Being then joined by General For- 
rest's command every force of the enemy on the 
river was driven into the forts at Dover, closely 
pursued by the cavalry, who captured a battery 
of brass rifled guns, besides large quantities of 
ammunition and supplies and four hundred and 
fifty prisoners. The amount of stores destroyed 
in these various expeditions was so great that 
the second advance of the army of the Cumber- 
land was delayed for fully six months. General 
Wheeler then received his promotion to Major- 
General, and the Confederate Congress passed a 
resolution of thanks for his daring conduct and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



241 



brilliant achievements, January 23d, 1863. At 
Shelbyville, in covering the retreat of General 
Bragg's army to Chattanooga, with but six hun- 
dred men he held twelve thousand Federal troops 
in check for four hours, and at the end of day 
headed a "forlorn hope" of sixty brave spirits 
to open the road for the escape -of a portion of 
his command which had been cut off, and to 
place the wagon-trains out of danger ; of these 
sixty but thirteen escaped. Wheeler, who was 
completely surrounded, charged through the 
enemy's columns, plunged headlong into the 
river, then swollen to a mighty torrent, and, 
amid a shower of bullets, escaped in safety to 
the opposite bank. Duiing that hazardous but 
fortunate retreat General Wheeler engaged the 
enemy successfully at Tullahoma, Allisonia 
Bridge, New Church, Elk River Bridge, Uni- 
versity Place, etc., and after Bragg's army had 
reached Chattanooga he frustrated a large Fed- 
eral cavalry raid into Alabama. When Bragg's 
army retired from Chattanooga General Wheel- 
er's command guarded the passes of the moun- 
tains, and was successful in checking General 
Rosecrans' right wing, which was endeavoring to 
penetrate to Rome. He bore a prominent part 
in the battle of Chickamauga, being hotly en- 
gaged during both days. During the 19th and 
20th September he captured two thousand pris- 
oners with a large train of supplies, and on the 
21st routed and dispersed two columns of cav- 
alry, capturing an entire train of wagons, four 
hundred and fifty prisoners and eighteen stands 
of colors. He then made a brilliant and suc- 
cessful raid into Tennessee ; captured McMinn- 
ville and other posts on the road ; destroyed an 
immense wagon-train, numbering at least one 
thousand wagons, in Sequatchie valley, taking 
more than one thousand prisoners, and almost 
completely cut off the supplies of General Rose- 
crans' army. With but little rest he was ordered 
into East Tennessee, where, in two days, Burn- 
side's cavalry, the boast of " the army of the 
Ohio," under General Sanders, was beaten, cap- 
tured, killed, scattered or demoralized by an 
inferior force under Wheeler, and their com- 
mander mortally wounded. He then joined 



Longstreet and assisted in investing Knoxville, 
but being telegraphed for by General Bragg 
reached him, after travelling day and night, just 
in time to cover the retreat of his army from 
Missionary Ridge. From November, 18-63, 
until May, 1864, all but two brigades of 
Wheeler's command was detached on duty in 
Tennessee, during which time he defeated Gen- 
eral Thomas' attempt to occupy the fortified 
position at Dalton, and with about six hundred 
men utterly routed an entire brigade of Federal 
cavalry, capturing their camp and stores. On 
May 1st the Federal army of over one hundred 
thousand men, under General Sherman, com- 
menced its advance against General Johnston's 
army of not more than half that number, and 
Wheeler's cavalry fought their advance step by 
step with a steady determination which a Fed- 
eral correspondent described as " an abandon 
and desperation worthy of a better cause." At 
the battle of Dug Gap, Varnell's Station, Resaca, 
Cass Station, New Hope Church and Kennesaw, 
GeneraLWheeler continued to hold the Federal 
army in check. Dismounting his men behind 
temporary barricades he repulsed the enemy's 
advancing lines, inflicting heavy losses at every 
step they marched, and with his cavalry defeated 
every attempt to turn Johnston's right flank. 

On 1 8th June General Hood assumed com- 
mand of the Confederate forces, and Wheeler 
with his cavalry was ordered to retard General 
McPherson who, with three army corps, was 
advancing upon Atlanta by way of Decatur. 
After several severe and brilliant engagements 
in which General Wheeler had less than one- 
tenth of the force to which he was opposed, he 
attacked a division of infantry forming the ex- 
treme left of the Federal army, carrying a 
formidable line of breastworks and capturing 
garrison, camp equipage and many cannon. In 
this engagement General McPherson was killed. 
General Sherman, in a despatch to General 
Halleck, about this time, with characteristic 
modesty thus communicates his plans : 

"July 7.6th, 1S64. 

" General H. W. Halleck: To-morrow we 
begin to move against Atlanta. At same time 



242 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



I send around by our right a force of about 
3,500 cavalry under General McCook ; and 
around by the left about 5,000 cavalry under 
General Stoneman, with orders to reach the 
railroad about Griffen. I have also consented 
that General Stoneman, after he has executed 
this part of his mission, if he find it feasible, 
may, with his division proper, about 2,000 
strong, go to Macon and attempt to release our 
officers and prisoners there, and then to Ander- 
sonville to release the 20,000 of our men there. 
Whilst these are in progress I will, with the 
main army, give employment to all the rebel 
army in Atlanta. "W. T. Sherman, 

" Major-General Commanding." 

On the morning of July 27th, General Mc- 
Cook, with three brigades, numbering thirty- 
five hundred picked men, the flower of the Fed- 
eral cavalry, crossed the Chattahoochee near 
Campbellton to strike the railroad at Lovejoy's 
Station, twenty miles south of Atlanta. Garrard 
and Stoneman, each commanding divisions num- 
bering together nearly 7,000 men, moved to- 
wards Lithonia, there dividing : Garrard moving 
towards Lovejoy's and Stoneman southeasterly 
towards Macon. By midnight General Wheeler 
had attacked Garrard's flank, and at daylight 
drove him back towards Sherman's main army. 
He also despatched three brigades after Stone- 
man, and, leaving one brigade to watch Gar- 
rard, started with the balance of his command, 
now reduced to 1,000 men, after McCook, who, 
finding himself pursued, commenced a rapid 
retreat towards Newnan. Wheeler, overtaking 
McCook near Newnan on the 30th of July, at- 
tacked him with great vigor, and after four 
hours severe fighting completely defeated him, 
capturing 950 prisoners together with their 
horses, equipments, and artillery. The column 
which he sent after Stoneman was equally suc- 
cessful, capturing General Stonemen himself 
and 500 prisoners ; the remainder of his com- 
mand being scattered through the country. 
Wheeler pursued and defeated the various flying 
detachments from Stoneman's and McCook's 
command. 



The total number of prisoners captured in 
these engagements amounted to 3,200, includ- 
ing one major-general and five brigade com- 
manders, with two batteries and thirty wagons. 
The enemy lost over 800 killed and wounded, 
besides large numbers who were scattered through 
the country and never returned to the army. 
Thus was destroyed by General Wheeler one of 
the largest and most dangerous raids inaugurated 
during the war, with a force scarcely half that 
of the enemy. The absolute impossibility of 
feeding so many animals made it necessary to 
send a portion of the Confederate cavalry to the 
Federal rear, and accordingly on the 9th of 
August, General Wheeler, with about 4,000 men, 
started on a raid into North Georgia and Ten- 
nessee, during which General Williams, with 
two brigades and half the artillery, became sep- 
arated and did not again join Wheeler's com- 
mand. The result of his labors during this 
raid was the capture of Dalton, Athens, Marys- 
ville, Clinton, McMinnville, Lebanon, Liberty, 
Smyrna, and Lynnville, with 1,700 beef-cattle, 
over 100 wagons, 700 horses and mules, many 
stores, and 450 prisoners ; the destruction of 
forage collected for Sherman's army in East 
Tennessee, and of several trains of cars loaded 
with supplies ; and the complete stoppage of 
communication between Chattanooga and Sher- 
man's army for twelve days, and between Nash- 
ville and Chattanooga for twenty-four days ; 
besides bringing out from the enemy's lines 
over 2,000 recruits for his own and nearly 3,000 
for other commands. All this was accomplished 
with a loss of about 120 killed and wounded. 
In the latter part of October, General Wheeler 
became convinced that Sherman was about to 
march through the country to Savannah, and 
with great difficulty gained permission to take a 
portion of his command into Georgia to defend 
some of the important cities. By rapid march- 
ing he succeeded in reaching his position south 
of Atlanta on the 15th of November, when Sher- 
man, according to his official report, started on 
his march with 60,000 infantry and Kilpatrick's 
cavalry, numbering 5,500 men. General Wheeler 
repulsed the enemy in his attempts upon Griffin, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



243 



Forsyth, and Macon. After Sherman had 
crossed the Oconee, Kilpatrick started on a 
rapid raid towards Augusta, but was pursued by- 
Wheeler and driven back with heavy loss upon 
Sherman's main army, thus saving that city with 
its magnificent powder mills, ordnance stores, 
and immense quantities of cotton. On reaching 
Savannah he held in check a Federal column 
which was endeavoring to cut the only line of 
communications, and thus enabled the small 
Confederate force occupying that city to with- 
draw in safety. The result of his operations 
was the protection of a large extent of country 
which would otherwise have been destroyed, 
saving the cities of Augusta, Macon, Forsyth, 
and Griffin, and capturing, killing, and wound- 
ing over 2,000 of the enemy. After the evacu- 
ation of Savannah General Wheeler's command 
guarded the country in all directions and frus- 
trated all attempts to raid on the part of the 
Federals. An officer with President Davis, 
writing with reference to these operations, said : 
" The President was much impressed by the ex- 
traordinary activity, perseverance, indefatigable 
energy, and gallantry exhibited. Considering 
the strength of the enemy, your own small force, 
and the absence of all resources for supplying 
your losses, I do not think there is anything 
comparable to it in the annals of warfare. I am 
inclined to think the President is substantially 
of the same opinion." 

In the latter part of January General Sherman 
commenced his march towards Augusta, which 
General Wheeler contested step by step. On 
February 10th and nth he had a severe fight at 
Aiken, S. C, driving back vastly superior num- 
bers of the enemy, and saving not only that city 
but the manufactories at Graniteville, and com- 
pelling Sherman to abandon his designs on 
Augusta. Governor A. G. Magrath, of South 
Carolina, "tendered him the thanks of the 
State for the defence of Aiken against Sher- 
man's ruthless horde. At Columbia, S. C, and 
throughout Sherman's raid through the Caro- 
linas, General Wheeler continued to oppose and 
harass his line of march. Near Johnsonville he 
attacked the enemy's cavalry, capturing General 



Kilpatrick's sword and horse and 400 prisoners. 
At Averysboro he hastened to the relief of Gen- 
eral Hardee, who was engaged with a largely 
superior force, reaching the spot in time to pre- 
vent the enemy turning his flank. At Benton- 
ville he held the left of the Confederate army, 
and, on the evening of the second day, routed 
Mower's Federal corps after it had completely 
turned Johnston's flank and taken possession of 
the only line of retreat ; by this skilful and dar- 
ing movement Wheeler saved the Confederate 
army from certain loss. In the spring of 1865 
General Wheeler was promoted to Lieutenant- 
General, having held a command continuously 
for two years and a half that entitled him to 
that rank, a longer period than any other officer 
in the Confederate service had retained con- 
tinuous command of an army corps in the field. 
During the Federal march through South and 
North Carolina he captured or placed hors de 
combat more than 5,000 of their troops, and 
defeated them in more than twenty engagements. 
As Sherman followed Johnston through Raleigh, 
N. C, Wheeler covered the latter's retreat and 
surrendered with him at Greensboro. His fare- 
well address is worth preserving : 

" Head-quarters Cavalry Corps, 

"April 2gi/i, 1S65. 

"Gallant Comrades: You have fought your 
fight ; your task is done. During a four years' 
struggle for liberty you have exhibited courage, 
fortitude, and devotion ; you are the sole victors 
of more than two hundred severely contested 
fields; you have participated in more than a 
thousand conflicts of arms ; you are heroes, vet- 
erans, patriots ; the bones of your comrades 
mark battle-fields upon the soil of Kentucky, 
Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi ; 
you have done all that human exertion could 
accomplish. In bidding you adieu I desire to 
tender my thanks for your gallantry in battle, 
your fortitude under suffering, and your devo- 
tion at all times to the holy cause you have done 
so much to maintain. I desire also to express 
my gratitude for the kind feeling you have seen 
fit to extend towards myself, and to invoke upon 



244 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



you the blessings of our heavenly Father, to 
whom we must always look for support in the 
hour of distress. Brethren in the cause of free- 
dom, comrades in arms, I bid you farewell ! 

"J. Wheeler." 

General Wheeler bore a prominent part in 
the battles 6f Shiloh, Farmington, the fights 
around Corinth, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chick- 
amauga, the first eight days of the siege of Knox- 
ville, Ringgold, Rocky Face, Dalton, Resaca, 
Cassville, New Hope, battles around Kennesaw 
Mountain, Peach-tree Creek, Decatur, battles 
around Atlanta, siege of Savannah, Averysboro, 
and Bentonville, besides being under fire in 
over eight hundred skirmishes. As a comman- 
der of cavalry, General Wheeler had few equals 
and no superiors in the Confederate service. 
It would seem that the disasters which befell the 
Army of Tennessee occurred only during his 
absence : during the battle of Missionary Ridge, 
Wheeler was with Longstreet at Knoxville ; 
when Atlanta fell, Wheeler was in Tennessee ; 
during Hood's disastrous campaign in Tennes- 
see, Wheeler was fighting Sherman in Georgia. 
At Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and 
during Johnston's masterly retreat from Dalton 
to Atlanta, General Wheeler commanded the 
cavalry, and, by his skilful manoeuvring, con- 
tributed greatly to the success of the Confed- 
erate arms. His destruction of Rosecrans' train 
prevented the Army of the Cumberland from 
moving forward for six months after the battle 
of Murfreesboro ; and his raid on Tennessee 
after the battle of Chickamauga, besides de- 
stroying immense trains and stores, drew Rose- 
crans' cavalry away from his army, and thus 
saved from utter destruction the Confederate 
army at Missionary Ridge. His promotion was 
unexampled for its rapidity: at twenty-two a 
Second Lieutenant in the United States army ; a 
year later a First Lieutenant in the Confederate 
service ; at twenty-four a Colonel, the following 
year a Brigadier-General, and then Major-Gen- 
eral ; at twenty-six a corps commander, and two 
years afterwards Lieutenant-General. With six- 
teen horses killed under him, and many others 



wounded, General Wheeler passed through his 
eventful military career with only an occasional 
wound, his diminutive figure and restless activity 
seeming to give him almost a charmed life. 
Vigilant, energetic, full of fire and enterprise ; 
thoroughly instructed in the duties of his 
profession, and perfectly conversant with the 
elaborate details of military organization ; he 
was as well the brave and gallant soldier as the 
high-minded and courteous gentleman. Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston, writing to President 
Davis on Wheeler's name being presented for 
promotion, says : " It is needless to remind you 
of the fidelity, zeal, courage, and success with 
which General Wheeler has commanded his 
corps." General Hardee, in a similar letter, 
bears this emphatic testimony: "You well know 
Wheeler's merit, but as I have served long with 
him, it may not be amiss to add that I have not 
met any one in the war more devoted to the cause, 
or any one more zealous, conscientious, and 
faithful in the discharge of his duties." While 
General R. E. Lee, during his last visit to 
Savannah, in a conversation regarding the con- 
duct of the war and its most noted commanders, 
said: "The two ablest cavalry officers which 
the war developed were General J. E. B. Stuart, 
of Virginia, and General Joseph Wheeler, of the 
Army of Tennessee." 

Since the war General Wheeler has practised 
law at Wheeler and Courtland, Ala., and though 
rendering important services to the Democratic 
party both in the State Convention and in the 
campaign, has steadfastly refused all invitations 
to become a candidate for Congress. In a 
speech delivered during the recent campaign he 
pays the following just and eloquent tribute to 
those who fought beside him in the war : 
"Southern soldiers who fought under Lee, 
Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson were governed 
by motives as pure, as lofty, as noble, and as 
patriotic as ever emanated from the human 
breast. Men not actuated by principle could 
never have swept Grant's army from the field 
of Shiloh or charged as they did the Heights of 
Perryville, or fought as they did at Murfrees- 
boro, Chickamauga, and in the hundred battles 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



245 



from Ch-ittanooga to Jonesboro. Thirty-five 
thousand men, even though endowed with the 
firm and lofty courage inherent to the sons of 
our soil, could never have struggled for a hun- 
dred days with Sherman's trebly strong and 
trebly well-equipped and appointed army, unless 
also sustained by principle and patriotism. Men 
like these bear no malice or hatred in their 
hearts. Their hearts yearn for purity in all 
things. And in government their hearts yearn 
for the purity of Washington. They acknowl- 
edge and take pride in the endurance and cour- 
age of the Federal soldier. Their heroes who 
led the van of battle, the gray joins with the 
blue in crowning with the laurel wreath of fame. 
We stand without a murmur and hear the mis- 
creant who never heard the sound of war shout 
' patriot ' for the one, and ' traitor ' for the 
other. We walk with reverent step where sleep 
the Federal dead, each grave marked with mon- 
umental marble, and where over all the ' Stars 
and Stripes' will float, 'a sentinel' forever; 
and we only weep tears of sorrow, not of com- 
plaint, when we see the rude sepulchre of the 
Southern soldier who fell in the perilous front 
of battle — 

" ' Shoulder to shoulder, there they resr, 
In line of battle forever dressed.' 

No monument but fhe green sod planted by 
the hand of heaven, no guide or sentinel to say 
to the visitor of those sacred fields : ' These are 
the graves of heroes.' But, my countrymen, 
glory and angels guard, and will always guard, 
with solemn round the bivouac of our heroic 
dead. Their lowly beds are patriots' graves, and 
let us, by continued acts of love and devotion 
to our country, prove to the world how truly we 
are patriots also. Their work is done, they sleep 
the peaceful sleep of death, and they wear an 
immortal crown of'glory. They stand with Lee 
and Stonewall Jackson before the throne of our 
Almighty Father, and White Courts beyond the 
stars have already decreed that they, like Wash- 
ington, were defenders of the principles of 
American liberty. ' ' 




HON. WADE HAMPTON. 

South Carolina. 

ADE HAMPTON was born, in the year 
1S18, at Charleston, S. C. His ances- 
tor, who first settled in South Carolina, 
\C>jN§ moved there from Caroline county, Va. 
^ His grandfather, General Wade Hamp- 
ton, was a distinguished officer during the Revo- 
lutionary war, and remarkable for his strong 
individuality of character, will and personal 
courage. His father, Colonel Wade Hampton, 
of Columbia, S. C, was a distinguished officer 
in the war of 1812, and an aide-de-camp to 
General Jackson in the memorable battle of New 
Orleans. He served with distinction in both 
branches of the Legislature of his native State, 
and was the wealthiest and most conspicuous 
gentleman, perhaps, who has ever lived in the 
South, and the foremost figure in the social life 
of old Carolina in the days of her greatest pros- 
perity. In action, keeping aloof from politics 
while he maintained his interest in all that con- 
cerned the welfare of his State,' he probably 
exercised among the public men of his day as 
decided an influence as any recognized leader of 
the people. His residence was divided between 
Richland county, S. C, and his large cotton 
plantations in Washington county, Miss. 

His eldest son, Wade Hampton, the subject 
of this sketch, until the outbreak of the war 
between the States, lived a life which in contrast 
with his career since i860 was as uneventful as 
that of most Southern cotton planters, except 
that he was many years before the war a member 
of the South Carolina Legislature, and was 
brought into the range of all the excited politics 
of the day. He was one of the richest planters 
in the State, and owned large tracts of land well 
stocked with negroes, and was distinguished as 
the most humane and indulgent of men in the 
management of his servants. He had the repu- 
tation also of being an enlightened and liberal 
agriculturalist. His residence at Columbia, S. C, 
was known both in Europe and America as the 
abode of splendid hospitality, and as one of the 
most superb residences in the United States. 



246 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



His winters were always spent on his plantation 
in Mississippi, the paternal inheritance, where 
he used the leisure which the business of a well- 
organized plantation allowed him for the enjoy- 
ment of a cultivated taste for books, varied by 
an outdoor-life on horseback, and by the sports 
of hunting and fishing. Bear and deer hunting 
was a passion with him, and especially so the 
adventures and excitement of the bear hunt, to 
which he was devoted. The woodcraft which 
he acquired in this school of practice aided the 
genius of strategy which was born in him as an 
instinct, in making him one of the most success- 
ful military leaders who fought under General R. 
E. Lee the battles of the Confederacy in Vir- 
ginia during the late war, and this without a 
particle of previous military education or train- 
ing. In politics he belonged to the more mod- 
erate school of South Carolina opinion before 
the war, but when the people of the State had 
joined the movement of the entire South in 1861, 
he obeyed the call of South Carolina as Lee did 
that of Virginia, and in the cause of the South 
he raised one of the earliest commands for ser- 
vice in the field — the one well known, in the first 
battle of Manassas and afterwards to the soldiers 
of both armies as the Hampton Legion. This 
Legion, consisting of infantry, cavalry and artil- 
lery, of which Wade Hampton was Colonel, in 
the early encampments around Richmond, was 
recognized as the elite of the various military 
organizations, and obtained the highest social 
honors then so profusely distributed among mil- 
itary men. Colonel Hampton contributed largely 
out of his private means towards the equipment 
of his command. Their flag was the patriotic 
gift of the ladies of South Carolina, and in ac- 
cepting it the Legion had promised to defend it 
as long as one of their number remained. At 
the first battle of Manassas, Hampton's 600 in- 
fantry held for some time the Warrenton road 
against Keyes, and his personal gallantry was 
noticed in all accounts of the battle. His horse 
was shot dead under him, and he was severely 
wounded in the head, after fighting some time 
on foot with his rifle. In nearly all the battles 
of the Peninsula lie was among the first in the 



fight. At Seven Pines he lost in killed and 
wounded more than half of his command, and 
was himself again severely wounded. After the 
battle of Gaines' Mill, he was promoted to 
Brigadier-General of Cavalry, and was afterwards 
with the renowned General J. E. B. Stuart in all 
his memorable deeds of daring. He was en- 
gaged in a number of detached enterprises of 
cavalry in Virginia during the second year of 
the war. In the early part of December, 1862, 
with a detachment of his brigade, he crossed the 
Upper Rappahannock, and surprised two squad- 
rons of Federal cavalry, captured several com- 
manding officers, and about 100 men, with their 
horses, arms, colors and accoutrements, without 
loss on his part. On the nth of December he 
crossed the Rappahannock, cut the enemy's 
communications at Dumfries, entered the town 
a few hours before Sigel's corps, then marching 
on Fredericksburg, captured twenty wagons with 
a guard of about ninety men, and returned safely 
to camp. On the 16th of December he again 
crossed the river and surprised the pickets be- 
tween Occoquan and Dumfries, captured fifty 
wagons, beating back a brigade of cavalry sent 
to the rescue. In the reorganization of Lee's 
army in 1863, preparatory to the Pennsylvania 
campaign, General Hampton was assigned to a 
brigade of cavalry and again zealously engaged 
with Stuart and the two Lees in the operations 
of that year. The most important of the cavalry 
affairs of this period was the battle of Brandy 
Station, and here General Hampton distinguished 
himself by his valor and devotion. In this 
bloody fight every field officer was wounded, 
as he successively took command of the brigade. 
When Lee's army occupied Chambersburg, Gen- 
eral Hampton was appointed Military Governor, 
and the inhabitants have since borne willing tes- 
timony that they suffered no outrage whatever at 
the hands of the Confederates during that period. 
At Gettysburg he was three times wounded, and 
so badly that he had for some time to be absent 
from his command. Out of twenty-three field 
officers in his command, twenty-one were killed 
or wounded? The statement of its losses is quite 
sufficient to prove that the cavalry were not 1111- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



247 



worthy compeers of the glorious infantry of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, and that in the 
matter of hard fighting, Hampton contested the 
palm with the best of Lee's lieutenants. For 
his many brave deeds he was promoted to the 
rank of Major-General, and shortly afterwards to 
that of Lieutenant-General, and took command 
of the cavalry of Virginia after the lamented 
death of General J. E. B. Stuart. Thenceforth 
considered as Lee's master of horse, he had an 
important share in the great campaign of 1864, 
and obtained the most brilliant and valuable 
success of his military life. A part of General 
Grant's early combination against Richmond 
was a movement of cavalry under Sheridan to 
destroy Gordonsville and Charlottesville, with 
the railroads near those places, then to unite 
with Hunter in his attack on Lynchburg, and 
after the capture of that place the joint forces to 
move to the White House on the Pamunkey, 
from which point they would join the main Fed- 
eral army or threaten Richmond. This impos- 
ing piece of strategy was completely frustrated 
by Hampton's celerity of movement and vigor 
of action. On June 10th he succeeded in 
placing himself in front of the enemy near Tre- 
villian's Station on the Central railroad, and 
attacked the next morning at daybreak. In his 
official report of the action, General Grant 
claims that, on the nth, Sheridan drove the 
Confederate cavalry " from the field in complete 
rout," and says when he advanced towards Gor- 
donsville on the 1 2th, "he found the enemy 
reinforced by infantry behind well-constructed 
rifle-pits about five miles from the latter place, 
and too strong to successfully assault." There 
was not an infantry soldier in arms nearer the 
scene of action than with General Lee's army at 
Cold Harbor, and "the well-constructed rifle- 
pits " were nothing more than rails put up in the 
manner in which cavalry were accustomed to 
arrange them to prevent a charge. Sheridan 
mistook some of Hampton's cavalry dismounted 
and fighting on foot for infantry : he saw infan- 
try "too strong to successfully assault," and the 
statement was eagerly seized by his superior to 
cover his shame and mortification of defeat — it was 



indeed a decisive check. Sheridan was defeated 
at Trevillian's, was punished in the skirmishes 
at the White House and Forge Bridges, and was 
routed at Samaria Church. Nearly 1,000 pris- 
oners were taken, and from the last named 
place the enemy was pursued within two or three 
miles of Charles City Court-House, his wounded 
scattered over the ground upon which he had 
fought. Sheridan retreated to Wynoke Neck in 
order to cross the James under the protection of 
the gunboats, and Hampton, in accordance with 
instructions from General Lee, moved, on the 20th 
of June, to the pontoon bridge, with a view to 
cross and join the army on the south side of the 
James. This closed his operations having for 
their object the defeat of Sheridan's movement 
in the rear of Lee. He at once commenced 
another operation, which was to intercept Wil- 
son, who was returning from Staunton river bridge 
to rejoin Grant's army. Some infantry and artil- 
lery having been placed at Ream's Station, 
Hampton moved with his division to attack the 
enemy at Sappony Church. Here he broke the 
enemy's lines and fought him for several days, 
while Fitzhugh Lee at Ream's Station crowned 
the victory and achieved a brilliant success of 
his own. In this affair Hampton took Soo pris- 
oners. The history of these few weeks is thus 
officially related by General Hampton : 

" During this time — a period of twenty-three 
days — the command had no rest and was badly 
supplied with rations and forage ; marched up- 
wards of four hundred miles; fought the greater 
portion of six days, and one entire night ; cap- 
tured upwards of a thousand prisoners, many 
guns, small arms, wagons, horses and other 
material of war ; and was completely successful 
in defeating two of the most formidable and 
well-organized expeditions of the enemy. This 
was accomplished at a cost, in my division, of 
719 killed, wounded, and missing. The men 
have borne their privations with perfect cheer- 
fulness, they have fought admirably, and I wish 
to express not only my thanks to them for their 
good conduct, but my pride at having had the 
honor to command them." Perhaps General 
Hampton's most grateful enterprise in Lee's 



248 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



army was the famous "beef-raid," in which he 
made a considerable and most timely addition 
to the Confederate commissariat. On Septem- 
ber 16th he got in Grant's rear, east of City 
Point, and drove off 2,486 beeves, and 400 
prisoners. It was a joke well relished in an 
army of half-starved soldiers, and, as the beeves 
were estimated to weigh an average of 800 
pounds each, close on 2,000,000 pounds of 
meat was a most substantial and welcome aug- 
mentation of their meagre rations. 

During the march of General Sherman through 
South Carolina, General Hampton was detached 
from General Lee's command to join the forces 
then under Beauregard. Here he could only 
harass the enemy as he advanced, and punish 
the murderous and marauding cavalry of Kil- 
patrick. The latter he did very effectually, 
once surprising Kilpatrick's camp, and causing 
him to take hasty flight with no other garment 
than his shirt. But his reduced command 
could do little to restrain the outrages of Sher- 
man's main army. He was ordered to leave 
Columbia without a fight, and compelled to 
abandon his own home there to the torch of 
the enemy, who spared nothing in a city filled 
only with women and children. When Sher- 
man's army marched northward to Charlotte, it 
was preceded by a gang of men called "bum- 
mers," who robbed, plundered and murdered 
with impunity. Worse villains never went un- 
hung. Some of them, Sherman said, had been 
killed after capture, and he wrote Hampton a 
very characteristic letter, stating he would hang 
man for man. Hampton replied he knew 
nothing of the killing of his "foragers," as he 
called them, but he gave him fair warning that 
if he hung a single Confederate soldier he would 
hang two Federals ; furthermore, he told Sher- 
man that he had directed his men to shoot 
down any soldier found burning houses, and that 
he should continue to do this as long as Sher- 
man disgraced his profession of arms by destroy- 
ing private dwellings. "Your line of march," 
said Hampton, "can be traced by the lurid 
light of burning houses, and in more than one 
household there is an agony far more bitter than 



death- — a crime too black to mention." In out- 
rages such as this, the war found its fitting 
conclusion, and the chivalric and honorable 
protest of such men as Hampton was scarcely 
heard in the midst of the general ruin, and 
almost unnoticed in the boast and clamor of the 
Federal success. General Hampton ended his 
career in the war as Lieutenant-General of the 
cavalry of Lee's army, and was one of Lee's 
most trusted lieutenants. The war ended, he 
sheathed his sword, and gave in anew his sworn 
allegiance to the constitution and laws of the 
United States. On the close of the struggle 
there were many Southerners who, in the first 
bitterness of their disappointment and defeat, 
were disposed to abandon their land, and to or- 
ganize schemes of emigration to other countries. 
General Hampton discouraged all such schemes, 
and published a letter dissuading his countrymen 
from general emigration, advised them to remain 
at home, and devote their energies to the resto- 
ration of law and order, the re-establishment of 
agriculture and commerce, the promotion of 
education, and rebuilding of the dwellings and 
cities which had been laid in ashes. To accom- 
plish this he urged that all who could do so 
should take the oath of allegiance to the United 
States government, so that they might partici- 
pate in the restoration of civil government. 
Speaking, in 1866, of the abolition of slavery he 
said: "Of all the inconsistencies of which the 
North has been guilty — and their name is legion 
— none is greater than that by which she forced 
the Southern States, while rigidly excluding 
them from the Union, to ratify the constitu- 
tional amendment abolishing slavery, which they 
could legally do only as States of the Union. 
But the deed has been done, and I, for one, do 
honestly declare that I never wish to see it 
revoked. Nor do I believe that the people of 
the South would now remand the negro to 
slavery if they had the power to do so unques- 
tioned." He urged the people of the South to 
fulfil to the letter all obligations they had 
entered into, keeping their faith so clear that no 
shadow of dishonor could fall upon them ; that 
the)' should render lull obedience to the laws 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



:49 



of the land, reserving to themselves the inalien- 
able right of freedom of speech and of opinion, 
and that as to the great question, the abolition 
of slavery, they should declare it settled for- 
ever. 

Continuing to bear an active part in public 
affairs, and ever proving his moderation, his 
devotion, and his high ability,, attention was 
naturally directed to him as a fitting leader for 
his party as the eventful contest of 1876 drew 
near. The life-long friend and protector of the 
negro — before the war in the patriarchal relation 
of an indulgent master to his slaves, and since 
the war as the kind and just landlord to his for- 
mer slaves, now his tenants and laborers — and as 
the exponent of the character and the intelli- 
gence of South Carolina, he was peculiarly 
qualified to become the standard-bearer of the 
Democratic party in its campaign for the redemp- 
tion of the State. Than he no man could have 
been better selected to give assurance to the 
country of the sincerity and truthfulness of the 
pledges made in their platform. Than his no 
name could have been chosen better calculated 
to strike terror into corrupt radical leaders in 
the State, and no name in the State so well 
carried to all the native colored people of South 
Carolina the quieting assurance that their rights 
would be fully protected, and their best interests 
in connection with those of the white people 
most sacredly preserved. His nomination on 
the Democratic ticket for Governor was the 
natural outcome of the situation. 

The contest was a memorable one. The 
whole power of the Federal and State govern- 
ments was brought to bear to crush the Demo- 
cratic party. All the political machinery of the 
State, wielded by men totally unscrupulous in 
the use of it, was directed to the sole end of 
perpetuating a rule which was a disgrace to civil- 
ization. Bayonets in the hands of the paid 
soldiery of" the common country gleamed, in 
palpable violation of the constitution, at every 
polling-place in South Carolina. The people of 
the State, broken by years of misrule and oppres- 
sion, were almost hopeless, and were confronted 
by opponents bold, confident and defiant, thor- 



oughly disciplined and bound together by the 
cohesive power of public plunder. Driven 
almost to desperation, and trusting alone to the 
justice of their cause, and recognizing the 
supreme necessity of saving their State, the 
people by a common impulse dedicated them- 
selves to the patriotic work, and after a struggle, 
as heroic as ever waged, redeemed the land of 
their fathers — the " prostrate State " — from the 
abyss of shame and ruin into which alien hands 
had plunged her, and restored her to her he- 
reditary place amid the sisterhood of States. 
They achieved success against every probability. 
They worked out a political miracle greater than 
any ever achieved by a people, and they achieved 
this because they were true to themselves and 
their principles. 

How the defeated radicals sought to avert the 
consequences of their defeat, how they invoked 
force to invalidate the expressed will of the 
people, and nearly precipitated the State into a 
bloody contest, is matter of history so recent as 
to render rehearsal unnecessary in this con- 
nection. But it is not too much to say that 
only the magic of General now Governor 
Hampton's personal influence saved South Caro- 
lina from a sanguinary massacre. By his firm 
but temperate and conciliatory bearing he not 
only restrained those at home, but influenced 
those afar, and opened the way to the peaceful 
settlement, which was one of the first notable 
events of the Hayes administration. Had he 
rendered no other services to his native State 
than that comprehended in the great struggle 
of 1876-77, he would deserve to be held in 
grateful remembrance by all true-hearted South 
Carolinians for all time. 

That he should be re-elected to the Governor- 
ship in the next ensuing campaign of 1878 was 
■inevitable. He had rendered opposition im- 
possible. Shortly after his installation for a 
second term, lie was elected to the United 
States Senate by the Legislature, and resigned 
the Governorship in order to take his seat in the 
national councils. His doing so, however, was 
delayed for some time by a fall from a mule 
while out shooting, in which he sustained a frac- 



250 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ture of a leg. Amputation of the limb was 
found to be necessary, and for months his con- 
dition was very precarious, and bulletins of his 
health were published almost daily, so great was 
the public anxiety. As soon as he was permitted 
to undertake the journey, he proceeded to Wash- 
ington, where he has served his State with devo- 
tion and discrimination. 

General Hampton has been twice married. 
His first wife was the youngest daughter of Gen- 
eral Francis P. Preston, of Virginia, by whom 
he had three children, two of them becoming 
officers in the Confederate army. After the 
death of this lady he married the daughter of 
Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina, who 
died some years since. 



cS^ 



COLONEL J. M. HECK. 

North Carolina. 

5>G/f ONATHAN McGEE HECK was born in 
1831 in that section of the Old Domin- 
ion which now constitutes West Vir- 
ginia. His education was begun in the 
schools of his native place, and finished 
at Rector College, in the county of Taylor. He 
studied law with Edgar C. Wilson, at Morgan- 
town, Monongahela county, where he entered 
upon the practice of his profession, in 1857, in 
partnership with the Hon. P. H. Keck. Pre- 
vious to the civil war he was elected Common- 
wealth's Attorney of the County of Mononga- 
hela, and was a Colonel of militia, a company 
of which paid him the honor of adopting his 
name. When the civil war broke out he at once 
proceeded to the political front, and to the mil- 
itary front as soon as one was formed, having 
been a member of the Virginia Convention of 
1861 that passed the ordinance of Secession, 
which he signed, and sent afterwards by Gen- 
eral Lee to the Valley of Virginia, where he 
organized and commanded the 31st Virginia 
Regiment, and took part in the battle of Rock 
Mountain, at which, with a part of his com- 
mandj he was taken prisoner by the Federal 



forces under General McClellan, and not ex- 
changed until late in 1862. When exchanged 
at last, he found himself without a command, in 
consequence of the reorganization of his regi- 
ment during his imprisonment; whereupon the 
Confederate War Department, recognizing his 
talents for the organization of labor, requested 
him to undertake the manufacture of bayonets 
and munitions of war for the government, which 
he did, engaging later in mining for iron and 
copper. 

At the close of the war he made a vigorous 
attempt, in conjunction with other public-spir- 
ited Southerners, to promote the settlement of 
Northern people in North Carolina, establishing 
for the purpose an office in New York city, and 
distributing broadcast pamphlets, maps, reports, 
circulars, and the like publications. This move- 
ment was the first exhibition of enterprise on 
the part of the South after the war, and suc- 
ceeded in setting in motion a goodly emigration 
to North Carolina, not less than eight hundred 
applications .for land in that State having been 
received ; but the attempt was eventually de- 
feated by the confiscation policy of Mr. Thad- 
deus Stevens and the quarrel between President 
Johnson and Congress. He then turned his 
attention to the development of the resources 
of the Old Pine State by means more direct, if 
less comprehensive, and became the moving 
spirit in the establishment of the Deep River 
Manufacturing Company, of which he is the 
President, and whose operations in raising iron 
ore from the famous Buckhorn bank, in deepen- 
ing and rendering navigable forty or fifty miles 
of the Deep and Cape Fear rivers, and in facili- 
tating transportation by placing a steamboat on 
the former river, have largely contributed to the 
advancement of the iron industry in the State, 
and bid fair to continue until the Cape Fear 
river is made navigable from its mouth to its 
junction with the Deep. He is also a director 
in the Cape Fear Iron and Steel Company, es- 
tablished to manufacture the iron ore raised 
from the mines of the Deep River Company, 
and was the first in the State, if not in the 
South, to Spiegelize the metal. Hitherto char- 






7t 




^A^^> 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2 5* 



coal only has been used by this company in 
manufacturing : for, although coal exists almost 
alongside the iron mines, the company as yet 
has not utilized it, but will do so as soon as they 
complete their navigation works on the river. 
There are on the company's property saw mills 
and grist mills, and they will soon have cotton 
mills at some of their immense water-powers, 
made by their navigation dams, in full operation, 
but, owing to the depressed state of the iron 
market, the company itself is now idle, as is the 
Deep River Company. In addition to his in- 
terest in these companies, he is extensively in- 
terested in an iron furnace and iron mines, 
known as Danbury, in Stokes county, N. O, 
where his purpose is to make fine iron, to take 
the place of Swedish Dannamora iron, now ex- 
tensively imported for the manufacture of steel, 
and in the white soapstone quarries in Moore 
county, N. C. ; and owns copper and iron mines 
in Mecklenburg county, Va., as well as large 
coal beds in East Tennessee, on the line of the 
Knoxville and Ohio Railroad, which are now 
being worked on an extensive scale. 

Since the war he has introduced into North 
Carolina, in connection with the single interest 
of mining, at least half a million of capital. 
Nor has his intelligent activity been restricted 
to this interest. He was at one time a Director 
of the Raleigh and Augusta Air-line Railroad, 
which runs through the property of the Deep 
River Company; and he has at present several 
large plantations in Warren county, N. C, and 
carries into agriculture the enterprise and energy 
which distinguish him in mining and manufac- 
turing, cultivating cotton, tobacco, fruit and 
grain, promoting the cultivation of clover not 
only for the feeding of stock, but for the im- 
provement of the land, and being perhaps the 
largest fruit-grower in the State, having more 
than fifteen thousand fruit-trees on one planta- 
tion, and proving himself a zealous friend of the 
State Agricultural Society, of which he is Vice- 
President, and in the proceedings and discus- 
sions of which he is an active participant. Like 
all Virginians, he is very fond of horses, the 
breed of which he has done much to improve by 



the introduction of the finer strains. He has 
shown himself particularly efficient in the art 
of which Themistocles boasted ; and, though it 
cannot be said that he has made a small city 
great, he has, at all events, in the case of the 
capital of North Carolina, aided powerfully in 
making a considerable city greater, not only by 
the judgment and skill with which he has built 
up the suburban parts, but by the stimulus which 
his successful example has applied to others, the 
result being that the value of real estate around 
Raleigh has nearly doubled in the course of the 
last few years. 

In politics he has always been a Democrat, 
but since the war has not held or sought a politi- 
cal office, having given his undivided attention 
to developing the vast and varied resources of 
his adopted State, which has felt, in all its parts 
and all its interests, the quickening influence of 
his enlightened enterprise. He is a member 
of the Baptist Church, into the fellowship of 
which he was baptized by the Rev. Dr. T. H. 
Pritchard, at Raleigh, in 1864, and is as promi- 
nent and effective in his devotion to the moral 
as to the material interests of the Common- 
wealth, having been President of the North 
Carolina Baptist State Convention, as likewise 
of the North Carolina State Sunday School Con- 
vention. Always a friend of education, he was 
one of the three who founded the Raleigh Fe- 
male Seminary, and is a Trustee of Wake Forest 
College and of the Baptist Theological Seminary, 
at Louisville, Ky. ; also for many years Superin- 
tendent of a great Sunday school, numbering six 
hundred scholars and fifty officers and teachers. 
He is, in fact, closely identified with all the 
aims and movements of the Southern Baptists. 
His active benevolence, however, is not bounded 
by sectarian lines, and, like the rest of his quali- 
ties, has the power of communicating itself, he 
being not merely charitable himself, but the 
cause" of charity in others. To his abilities 
as an originator, organizer and administrator, 
he adds the faculty of ready and lucid speaking, 
and is thus equipped in every respect as a con- 
troller and leader of men. In short, he is a 
thoroughly live man, brimful of force and prac- 



252 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




tical talent, which acts in all directions without 
waste and to useful ends — such a man as Sir 
William Jones delighted to contemplate as the 
unit of the State. 

He married, in 1859, Mattie A. Callendine, 
daughter of Martin B. Callendine, a merchant 
of Morgan town, W. Va. , and to her wisdom and 
prudence he ascribes much of his success. 



DR. A. Y. P. GARNETT. 

Virginia. 

O be born a gentleman, and reared as 
such, to prove worthy of one's birth 
and training, is of itself a high honor. 
Many men are born such. Many are 
reared as such. By no means so many 
achieve the distinction last referred to. The 
subject of this sketch has more than maintained 
the trust of gentle birth and training committed 
to his keeping. For over a century the Gar- 
netts, the. Mercers, the Battailes and the Willis, 
of Virginia, have been known in every part 
thereof, and whether in State or Federal poli- 
tics, or in Revolutionary or subsequent wars, 
have made their mark. The monument upon 
the battle-field of Princeton marks the spot 
where General Mercer, of Virginia, fell, sword 
in hand, pierced by Hessian bayonets, fighting 
to the death in the war of the Revolution. For 
nearly fifty years the Essex district was repre- 
sented in Congress by the Garnett family, of 
Virginia ; and for a like space of time the 
abounding wealth and hospitality of Byrd, 
Willis and Hay Battaile contributed in no small 
degree to the world-wide reputation of Virginia 
gentlemen. In the Mexican war, at Cheat 
Mountain, at Gettysburg, the Garnett blood 
was spilt for Virginia, and it is not unsafe to 
predict that it has been transmitted untainted 
to those who, should occasion arise hereafter, 
will maintain the family prestige. 

The writer of this is a firm believer in blood 
and pedigree, whether in horses, dogs, or men, 
but he yet bears in mind that the tenth chapter 
of Genesis, while doubtless interesting to such 



members of the family of Ham and Cush as 
have a genealogical turn of mind and recognize 
their ancestry, is fatiguing to the general reader; 
nor is he unmindful that while Americans pre- 
tend to despise that which they really worship, 
to wit, ancestral renown, it would be improper 
to incorporate a family tree into a mere running 
sketch, such as this must necessarily be. Suffice 
it to say that Alexander Yelverton Peyton Gar- 
nett, the subject of this sketch, born at the ' 
family residence, in Essex county, Va., Septem- 
ber 19th, 1820, the son of Muscoe Garnett and 
Maria Battaile, his wife, derived his descent 
from, or was the near blood-kin of, those distin- 
guished Virginians above referred to. 

His early surroundings were well calculated to 
make impressions, enlist affections, and stamp 
characteristics upon his heart and mind, such as 
the most casual acquaintance cannot fail to dis- 
cover now, even after his long separation from 
the home of his nativity. He was one of a com- 
munity where wealth was not the mere instru- 
ment of ostentation and newly assumed arro- 
gance, but sat naturally upon its hereditary 
possessors, and was applied legitimately to the 
pursuit of happiness, as God intended it should 
be ; where labor leaned affectionately upon the 
support of capital as its patron and protector, 
instead of glowering upon it as a wild beast upon 
its keeper; where woman, too gently sweet to 
shock her femininity with a demand for man's 
privileges, taught him to lisp his first prayer to 
God, while man taught him from his cradle to 
look up to woman with a tenderness and respect 
next to that due to his Creator. He lived 
among men and women who believed in honor 
as something more than a fancy; whose pride 
scorned false speaking or false acting, and who 
cherished patriotism as something more than a 
garment to be put on and off, as best suited 
self-interest. 

And with all these healthful influences were 
mingled manly sports and social reunions, which 
developed the physique and gave him that 
knowledge of the world, and ease and grace in 
all society, which has been not the least instru- 
ment of his success. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



253 



His boyhood was spent at his home, and his 
education conducted under private tutors without 
incident worthy of relating. At the age of nine- 
teen he entered the Pennsylvania University, as 
a student of medicine, and, graduating in the 
year 1842, passed his examination by the Naval 
Medical Board with distinction, and secured, 
through Hon. George E. Badger, then Secretary 
of the Navy, an appointment as Assistant Sur- 
geon in the navy of the United States. This 
appointment opened to him quite a novel career. 
His first cruise was to the Pacific, under Com- 
mander C. K. Stribling, on the United States 
ship "Cyane," during which he visited the 
ports of Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso and Callao, 
returning to the United States in the fall of 
1844. His second cruise was to South America, 
upon the United States frigate " Columbia," 
commanded by Commander Rousseau. While in 
the port of Rio de Janeiro he became a visitor 
in the family of Hon. Henry A. Wise, of Vir- 
ginia, then Minister from the United States to 
the Court of Brazil. The result of this acquaint- 
ance was his marriage to Miss Mary Wise, the 
oldest daughter, soon after their return to this 
country, which occurred in the fall of 1848. 
After his marriage he was stationed temporarily 
in Washington, D. C, and upon being ordered 
to sea, soon thereafter, he resigned his position 
in the navy and entered upon his new career as 
a civil practitioner. From the first his career 
was attended by marked success. To a strong 
will, a good education, a large acquaintance and 
most captivating address, Dr. Garnett added 
an excellent discriminating mind, an unusual 
store of practical common sense, an intuitive 
diagnosis, without which scientific knowledge is 
a useless accomplishment, an untiring energy, 
and above all a sympathetic nature, which not 
only lights the intelligence to the patient's 
malady, but supplies a healing balm to the suf- 
ferer better than half the nostrums of the phar- 
macopoeia. The result of this happy union of 
advantages was that in a few years he had 
gained the front rank in his profession, had 
been elected to the chair of Clinics and Practice 
of Medicine in the National Medical College, 



had made an unusually large circle of friends 
and acquaintances, and reaped a handsome re- 
ward in reputation and pecuniarily. 

Although never actively engaged in politics, 
for his professional employments engrossed his 
whole time, few men in the country enjoyed 
better opportunities for understanding the po- 
litical situation. 

The professional arena is at best circum- 
scribed. The routine of medical duties is sel- 
dom varied by incidents calculated to appease 
the -longings of a highly wrought nature for ex- 
citement, and so it is that we often find leading 
men in both law and medicine, bound to their 
calling by a sense of duty, and yet never so 
happy as when indulging in, truant political ex- 
cursions. And as a class such men are better 
informed and infinitely more entertaining than 
the political hack, for their knowledge is ac- 
quired con amore, while his has that flavor of. the 
shop which never fails to disgust. 

Of an ardent temperament, and possessed of a 
truly Virginian family and State pride, Dr. Garnett 
could not fail to have his sympathiesdeeply inter- 
ested in the exciting issues which engrossed poli- 
ticians at the national capital during the years 
immediately preceding the Confederate war. 
The family physician of many of the leading 
politicians of both parties ; always anxious to 
hear the views of those with whom he agreed, 
and equally ready to combat every position of 
an antagonist with great force and equal warmth ; 
closely related to Senator Hunter, Hon. M. R. H. 
Garnett and Governor Wise, then in the heyday 
of their power, and the constant attendant and 
intimate of such men as Breckinridge, Floyd, 
Douglas and Caleb Cushing — he soon became 
known as an ardent Southerner in his sympa- 
thies, thoroughly posted in political matters, 
and possessing a political influence seldom en- 
joyed by physicians of his grade. So far was 
this reputation from impairing his medical stand- 
ing, either with the public or those who differed 
from his views, that he maintained his popularity 
with all classes up to the moment that he left 
Washington for the South, and his honest, out- 
spoken political convictions won him personal 



254 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



friends, by their frankness, from even his politi- 
cal opponents. His busy-going doctor's cab 
became well known to the community not only 
as the vehicle of the healing art, but was good- 
naturedly looked upon as a light flying battery 
of Southern views, ready to go into action at a 
moment's warning. 

It will be readily understood that as partisan 
feeling grew more bitter, as State after State 
seceded, as day after day first one and then 
another Southern leader withdrew to his State, 
until at last Virginia united her destiny with 
that of the Confederacy, and the war became a 
fixed fact, the situation of a man whose position 
was as prominent and whose views were as pro- 
nounced as those of Dr. Garnett was anything 
but pleasant, of even safe. The Federal party 
was in complete possession of the capital, and 
even his great personal popularity failed to pro- 
tect him from repeated anonymous threats of 
fanatics, who thirsted for some prominent object 
on which to vent their rage. These demonstra- 
tions finally culminated in a plot to mob his 
residence, which was, however, prevented by the 
timely precautions of the mayor and police. 
Had these threats been carried out, it is not 
unlikely that the bloody scenes afterwards en- 
acted in Alexandria and elsewhere would have 
been anticipated, for his high-strung nature 
would never have brooked the invasion of his 
fireside. These indications were enough to sat- 
isfy him that the time for decisive action had 
arrived. He had been reared to the conscien- 
tious belief that his first allegiance was due to 
Virginia. When the hour arrives, it does not 
require long consideration in the breast of such 
a man to determine upon his course. Not that 
he fails to appreciate the sacrifice of self-interest, 
or is drunk with unreasoning enthusiasm, but 
because faith, love, and pride in his State, in- 
stilled into the mother's milk of his infancy and 
made part of his boyhood's daily bread, has 
made loyalty to kith and kin an essential ele- 
ment of his nature. Therefore it was that in the 
full career of a successful and lucrative practice 
he abandoned his residence in Washington, and 
leaving every earthly possession, real and per- 



sonal, north of the Potomac, proceeded with his 
wife and little ones directly to Richmond, Va., 
and entered the service of his State. Nor did 
he leave Washington like a thief in the night. 
The mode of his departure was quite in keeping 
with the character of the man. When prepared 
to depart he discovered that troops had been 
placed at the entrance of the Long Bridge across 
the Potomac, to prevent the exodus of South- 
erners. Immediately he went in person to Hon. 
Simon Cameron, and demanded a passport to 
Virginia as his right. In vain did the Secretary 
deprecate the rashness and recklessness of such 
a step, the sacrifices he would make, the extreme 
hazard of the venture, coupling these with a 
masterly presentation of the inducements to 
remain. 

Dr. Garnett informed him that he had thor- 
oughly scanned the picture long before they 
met ; that he knew just what burden he laid 
down, and just what burden he assumed ; but 
that a duty far above the selfish plane on which 
his arguments revolved required him to take the 
step, compared with which no power and no 
wealth could weigh for a moment, concluding 
by a renewed demand for his passport and the 
characteristic sentence: "If you offered me a 
lump of gold large as the dome of yonder capi- 
tol, I would spurn it." To say the least of this 
speech it is hyperbolical, and many are the 
Johnny Rebs who would scratch their heads 
most cogitatively during many tantalizing hours 
before they ultimately concluded to reject the 
auriferous paraboloid in question. The passport 
was granted, and the next day saw our subject 
pass the sentries on the bridge and cast his lot 
with the ill-fated Confederacy. 

No sooner had he reached the Southern capi- 
tal than he was taken anew into the confidence 
and association of the leading men whom he 
had known in Washington. His .first night in 
Richmond found him at a conference between 
his old friends, Governor Letcher, General R. 
E. Lee, General Smith and others, and at their 
request he detailed minutely the condition of 
affairs in Washington, expressing the belief that 
the Federal Government was actively preparing 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



255 



for the immediate invasion of Virginia; even at 
that late date there were men in high position 
who doubted such a purpose ; how well founded 
was the opinion then expressed the succeeding 
events best show. 

Upon the removal of the Provisional govern- 
ment of the Confederacy to Richmond, which 
occurred soon after his arrival, he was appointed 
Surgeon in the army and placed in charge of 
two hospitals. He was also made a member of 
the Board of Medical Examiners, which sat in 
Richmond to examine applicants for admission 
to the Medical Corps. These responsible posi- 
tions, which, together with civil practice, en- 
grossed his whole time, were faithfully filled by 
him during the entire war, and he steadily 
added to and extended his reputation as an able 
and devoted practitioner. 

No man who did not witness the scenes 
enacted in a Confederate hospital in Richmond 
pending the war, can appreciate the strain upon 
the physical and mental energies, or the weary- 
ing heart-sickness which they brought to a sym- 
pathetic nature. Add to these the harassments 
of anxiety for the support of a helpless family 
upon meagre army pay, in a city where the 
necessaries of life, when obtained at all, were at 
prices ten or twenty times as great as the luxu- 
ries of to-day. To these add the but too inti- 
mate knowledge constantly gained from the 
highest authority of the hopes and fears, the 
doubts and tears surrounding the Southern Con- 
federacy, and it is difficult to imagine four years 
of greater wear and tear upon the body, heart 
and brain of any man than those through which 
Dr. Garnett's fate led him. Yet in these weird 
scenes there was a fascination, a half-drunken 
excitement at the whirl of hurrying events, for 
which human nature craves in spite of all phi- 
losophy. Perhaps no man in the Confederacy 
had more ample opportunity to observe the 
course of events, or from so many sources knew 
the secret springs of Confederate action -as did 
Dr. Garnett. Besides being the family physi- 
cian of Mr. Davis he was on terms of the most 
cordial social intimacy with the President and 
every member of his household. He was the 



physician to General R. E. Lee and family, as 
well as to the families of Generals Joe Johnston, 
Hampton, Preston, Breckinridge, and nearly 
every member of the Confederate Cabinet and 
Senate. Such relations doubless gave him oppor- 
tunities for information and supplied him with 
episodes of unwritten history, which would make 
a most fascinating autobiography, if the veil of 
professional confidence could be gently drawn 
aside even for a peep. 

When the final crash came, in April, 1865, 
and Richmond was evacuated, Dr. Garnett, at 
the request of President Davis, accompanied 
him as a member of his personal staff, and only 
after the surrender of General Johnston's army 
did he separate from his chief and return to 
Richmond a paroled prisoner after a horseback 
ride of three or four hundred miles. 

Returned to Richmond ! Ah ! who, that had 
not seen her in her pride and beauty, when, 
seated in her splendid amphitheatre, clothed in 
the living green of spring, crowded with rushing 
multitudes and circled by "that incomparable 
infantry " of Lee, she seemed a queen upon her 
throne, can tell what the weary Confederate on 
parole felt as returning home he first beheld, 
from the southern banks of the James, the black- 
ened ruins and long wilderness of vacant high- 
ways in the half-destroyed, half-deserted citadel 
of the South ? Who can tell the bitterness with 
which the remonstrances of Simon Cameron 
seemed to mock him, as, travel-stained and sick 
at heart, he rode through the ruins with naught 
to break the gloom but the hollow echoes of the 
hoof upon the deserted pavement? Who knows 
how hope for the future sickened at this realiza- 
tion of the past? Who can tell the feelings of a 
man of pride and sensibility, of ambition and 
capability, standing at the very zenith of life, 
surrounded by a growing family, more in need 
than ever before or afterwards, penniless, in the 
midst of the ruin of his life's work, and the very 
field of his labor destroyed? A cheap and vul- 
gar mode of disposing of this dilemma is a 
copious use of liquor. A sentimental but more 
satisfactory solution to wife and children is a 
bullet through the brain, or some quick poison. 



2 5 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



A not unusual result is brain-fever succeeded- by 
permanent softening for fear that the family is 
not already deep enough in misery or depen- 
dence. A man made after God's mould grows 
with the occasion and proves his manhood by 
grappling bravely with the issues and rising supe- 
rior, or dying game and fighting to the bitter end. 
Of such stuff was Dr. Garnett. His heart 
was in the Confederacy, and no man in his ap- 
pointed sphere struggled more honestly or 
bravely for its success, but he owed a duty to 
himself and those around him not inferior to 
that public duty he had now discharged. Too 
honest to apologize or exculpate, too manly to 
vegetate in whining regrets, too proud to eat 
the bread of dependence, he saw that his true 
path in the future lay in honest and unremitting 
work, and so it was that before the kisses were 
dry on the brows of those he loved he beset 
himself to work. Securing a home in Rich- 
mond he immediately resumed the practice of 
his profession with a zeal disaster could not 
quench nor poverty abate, and would doubtless, 
had he remained, now occupy a leading position 
there, but "man proposes and God disposes." 
Breathes there a man on earth who, having 
failed in an effort undertaken against the advice 
of friends, would not dodge to the last moment 
the dreadful " I told you so " he is sure to hear? 
Doubtless this feeling as well as sterner con- 
siderations induced Dr. Garnett to settle in 
Richmond after the war instead of returning to 
his old home. Notwithstanding the confisca- 
tion of his house and all his personalty by the 
government with a flattering assiduity in ferret- 
ing them out, his affairs demanded his presence 
in Washington, but it was not until August, 1865, 
that he returned. He doubtless entered upon 
those familiar scenes with somewhat of a Pariah 
defiance in his heart, determined to scorn un- 
sympathetic sympathy and resent unasked 
advice. It was the outcast tenant returning 
with a sense of injury to take the poor remnant 
which the law respects and forever turn his back 
upon the scene. But oh ! how different was the 
reception with which he met ! War and blood- 
shed, and plunder and desolation, had not been 



able to dam up the warm streams of friendship 
or gratitude. Right under the shadow of the 
capitol he found hearts that through all these 
years had beat as true to the Confederacy as his 
own, and welcomed him back with a fervor as 
genuine as his heart could wish ; even those who 
differed from him politically could well afford to 
be generous and, forgetting past strifes, recur to 
old friendship and give their gratitude for past 
kindness full play. And so it was that instead 
of finding himself alone and forgotten his former 
friends and patrons flocked around him and 
vied with each other in their efforts to induce 
him to return to their confidence and trust on 
the field of his early labors. Thus, with re- 
viving hope and a heart pulsating with honest 
pride and gratitude, he yielded to their impor- 
tunities and at once removed his family to 
Washington. 

The result has amply vindicated the wisdom 
of his determination. From the day of his 
return he has been blessed with a handsome 
practice, was soon re-elected to the chair of 
Clinical Medicine in the National Medical Col- 
lege, of which institution he is now Emeritus 
Professor, as also a member of the Board of 
Directors of the Children's Hospital, and of the 
Medical Society and Medical Association of the 
District of Columbia. During these busy years 
he has still found time to contribute quite a 
number of valuable additions to medical litera- 
ture, published in medical journals, and, true to 
his faith, has never lost an occasion to do honor 
to the Confederate dead. 

Without flattery it may be truly said that Dr. 
Garnett to-day occupies a position in the Na- 
tional Capital second to that of no man in his 
profession, and that position has been gained 
through the sheer conquering power of educa- 
tion, brains, and manhood. To attain it, he 
has made no humiliating sacrifice of self-respect, 
or concession of any sort, to gain position. His 
Southern views and feelings have been worn 
upon his sleeve to be seen of all men, and while 
never intruding them offensively upon any one, 
he has not only avowed them on occasion, but 
demanded that they be respected. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2 57 



In the year 1874 he was chosen President of 
the Southern Memorial Association of Washing- 
ton, and selected to deliver the oration upon 
the occasion of interring the Confederate dead 
who had fallen during Early's advance upon 
Washington, and whose bodies had been left 
scarcely covered where they fell. The public 
felt an unusual interest in the event, as it was 
the first public assemblage of Confederates 
within the district since the war. Much curios- 
ity was felt as to the nature of Dr. Garnett's 
address, for the intensity of his feelings was well 
known. The oration when delivered was brief, 
manly and conciliatory in its tone, at the same 
time vindicating the memory of the dead, and 
counselling fraternity and good feeling among 
the living. The following extracts are well 
worthy of preservation, not only as characteristic 
utterances of the man, but as truthful and elo- 
quent statements of the facts which they assert: 

"When the people of the North realize the 
truth and become convinced that we of the South 
were equally patriotic and conscientious in this 
struggle with themselves ; that in differentiating 
ourselves by the act of secession from them we 
did so under the highest convictions of our right 
so to do ; that the very act itself manifested our 
steadfast fidelity and tenacious loyalty to those 
principles which underlie the Constitution ; that 
we were actuated by no hostility to the Union, 
per se, but by a love for those fundamental 
truths upon which it had been founded ; when 
the National Legislature shall subordinate parti- 
san interest and sectional prejudices to these 
great elements of republican government, and 
when the people of each section shall learn to 
cultivate sentiments of mutual respect for each 
other; then, and not until then, shall we have a 
happy, united and homogeneous people, enjoy- 
ing the blessings of a prosperous, just and good 
government. 

" Neither time nor your patience, my friends, 
will permit me to continue this subject further, 
nor does it become me to indulge in any line of 
argument or expression which may seem to be 
inspired by feelings of animosity towards our 
Northern brethren ; believing as I do that the 
17 



great mass of them who engaged in this civil 
strife were animated by the highest sentiments 
of patriotism and devotion to duty. We all 
believe that this unhappy conflict was inevitable. 
The radical ideas of social equality and centrip- 
etal tendency of governmental powers which 
characterized the Northern mind, antagonized 
by the belief in State sovereignty and the aristo- ; 
cratic institution of slavery which obtained at 
the South, would, at some period not far dis- 
tant, necessarily result in a separation of the two 
sections. Whether, however, we regard this 
war as the legitimate fruits of a fatal defect in the 
Constitution, or the bloody expression of irre- 
pressible prejudice and political ambition, I must 
be permitted to proclaim here, in the presence 
of the dead, as well as the living, that no people 
in the long range of historic record were ever 
actuated by stronger motives or inspired by a 
higher sense of duty in engaging in this struggle, 
than those for whom I now speak. No ambi- 
tious lust for conquest and power, no sordid 
desire for the acquisition of territory or feeling 
of revenge, mingled with and degraded our 
cause ; we fought for political existence, we were 
forced to take up arms in defence of our honors, 
our homes, our children and our lives. The 
highest, the most sacred, the most imperative of 
obligations that could inspire men to assert their 
manhood, and maintain the precious inheritance 
which had been transmitted to them by a glori- 
ous ancestry of heroes and patriots demanded it. 
The very lares and pcnatcs appealed to us with 
silent eloquence to defend their consecrated 
fanes from the footsteps of the invader. 

"May we not, however, rejoice, my friends, 
that the struggle with all its attendant evils and 
bloody horrors has been in our day, rather than 
have bequeathed them to our children? Let us 
then return thanks with grateful hearts to an 
all-wise Providence that the contest is ended, 
and, resting upon the teachings of history, con- 
sole ourselves with the happy belief that the day 
is not far distant, when, as a united people, we 
shall regard the heroic deeds of both sides as a 
precious heritage of a common country ; when 
the military genius, lofty character and distin- 



2 5 8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



guished achievements of Lee and Jackson will 
inspire with feelings of admiration and pride the 
heart of every true American throughout the 
length and breadth of these United States, and 
hereafter, when the footsteps of the Northern 
soldier, who conscientiously risked his life for 
his country, shall press the sod so tenderly 
placed to-day over these remains by the hand of 
affection and sympathy, may his heart be so 
softened by emotions of patriotism and fraternal 
love that he will be prepared to say with the 
poet : 

" ' How sleep the brave who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes blest, 
When spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hallowed mould. 
She then shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. 

' By fairy hands their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung; 
There honor comes a pilgrim gray, 
To bless the turf that wraps their clay, 
And Freedom shall a while repair 
To dwell a weeping hermit there.' " 

It is impossible to know how much of the 
fraternity and restored good feeling which now 
bless this country is due to the utterance by 
representative men on both sides of sentiments 
like those above quoted. Certain it is that the 
magnanimity of men like Bartlett of Massachu- 
setts has touched a chord in the Southern heart 
that years of persecution and oppression could 
never have reached, and it is not doubted that 
the people of the North, equally generous in 
their impulses, first felt the warmth of returning 
affection beneath such manly appeals as these 
from men who had never concealed their true 
sentiments, or hesitated to make sacrifices to 
uphold them. In this speech, doubtless, was 
the germ of the following correspondence, which 
appeared when Decoration Day rolled around 
in 1876. It is published as a fresh evidence of 
the growing good feeling between the partici- 
pants in the late war, which is to be regarded as 
the most grateful contribution offered at the 
centennial shrine : 



" Washington, D. C, May 29//1, 1S76. 
"Dr. A. Y. P. Garnett, Dr. W. P. Young, 
J. W. Drew, Esq., Committee: 
" Gentlemen: Several Union soldiers desire 
to join with you in the decoration of the Confed- 
erate graves at Arlington cemetery on Saturday, 
June 3d, 1876; and they desire to furnish and 
place (under your direction) flags, such as are 
generally used on similar occasions. They beg 
leave to quote (name of author unknown to them') 
from a Massachusetts paper of May 30th, 1876 : 

" ' The blue and gray are the colors of God ; 
They are seen in the sky at even, 
And many a noble, gallant soul 

Has found them a passport to heaven.' 

" This simple request is made in view of the 
fact that your programme announces that the 
ceremonies are intended to be of an informal 
nature, which, in our opinion, is the proper 
manner of discharging such a duty of love and 
respect to fallen valor. It may not be amiss to 
state that this proposition comes from men the 
most of whom suffered from Confederate bullets, 
and also in Confederate prisons. It is desired 
that no publicity be given to it, as it is simply a 
desire of soldiers to do their duty towards 
soldiers. Yours respectfully, 

"Union Soldier of 17TH Mass. Infantry." 



'Washington, D. C, May 31^, 1S76. 
— , Union soldier of the Seven- 



"To Mr. - 

teenth Massachusetts infantry: 
" Dear Sir: I have had the honor to receive 
your letter of the 29th instant, in which, speak- 
ing for yourself and other 'Union soldiers,' you 
express a desire to unite with the members of 
the Southern Memorial Association in deco- 
rating on Saturday next the graves of the Con- 
federate dead interred in Arlington cemetery. 
You allege, as a motive for this exhibition of 
generous magnanimity and patriotic self-abnega- 
tion, that we propose to conduct this ceremony 
in a quiet, informal and unostentatious manner, 
and you further propose to furnish for the 
occasion a sufficient number of flags to be placed 
over the grave of each Confederate soldier, thus 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



259 



obliterating, as far as your laudable efforts can 
do so, all distinctions between the graves of the 
blue and the gray. 

"Believing you sincere in the noble senti- 
ments which your letter would seem to convey, 
I cannot sufficiently express to you my profound 
gratification at such a demonstration on the part 
of citizens of Massachusetts, enhanced by the 
fact that it comes from those who imperilled 
their lives in defence of a cause which they 
believed to be right, and who now possess the 
moral courage to be generous in peace as well as 
in war. 

" Permit me to say to you in all sincerity, men 
of Massachusetts, that it is only with weapons 
of this character that you may expect to subdue 
the proud spirit of Southern men, and con- 
summate a triumph more lasting, a victory more 
precious in all its richness of fruition, than the 
pomp and circumstance of war can ever achieve. 
It is eminently meet and proper, in this centen- 
nial year, that Virginia and Massachusetts, who 
so conspicuously contributed to laying the 
corner-stone of our system of government, and 
by their united wisdom, patriotism and virtue 
erected thereon the grand superstructure of this 
great republic, should be found once more side 
by side battling against those unfortunate preju- 
dices, animosities and resentments which since 
the war have served as centrifugal forces to keep 
the two sections of our common country asun- 
der, and to destroy that homogeneity of patri- 
otic sentiment which should characterize us as 
one people. Speaking, then, for myself and my 
associates, I feel authorized in assuring you that 
•we shall most cordially extend to you and your 
fellow-soldiers on that day a fraternal feeling, 
and unite with you in bestowing upon all alike 
those evidences of respect and good feeling so 
beautifully and poetically expressed by the strew- 
ing of flowers upon the graves of the dead. And 
on that day, over the graves of those who sacri- 
ficed their lives to a sense of patriotic duty and 
in the presence of his noble spirit which still 
lingers amidst the shades of those majestic 
groves, let us hope to consummate that greatest 
and most difficult of all human achievements, 



a victory over ourselves, and be prepared to 
receive new and lasting inspirations of patriotism 
and brotherly fellowship. 

" While honestly expressing to you the above 
sentiments, I find myself somewhat embarrassed 
by one feature of the proposition submitted in 
your letter. I refer to the suggestion which you 
make of bringing flags to be placed upon the 
graves of the Confederate dead. I deem it but 
justice to both you and myself that I should 
candidly place before you the nature of that 
embarrassment. The programme determined 
upon by our association had for its object the 
simple expression of our love and respect for 
the memory of the dead in a quiet, sacred and 
unostentatious way, initiated years ago by the 
Southern mothers, widows and daughters of 
those who were slain in battle, studiously avoid- 
ing any and all demonstrations which could pos- 
sibly connect the ceremony with politics or 
kindred subjects. The decoration of graves 
with flowers is, as I have above said, the poetic 
expression of a sentiment, an act which springs 
from our finer and purer natures, a feeling 
which recoils from the rude touch of political 
strife, a sublimated and refined emanation from 
that spiritual element of our constitution. So 
sacred, indeed, do we regard this act that, by 
common consent, we forbade the introduction 
of any discordant agent which might harshly 
grate upon us in the way of music, orations, 
poems or songs, tolerating only the simple and 
appropriate prelude of an invocation to the 
Supreme Being. 

" Now, while we especially disclaim any lurk- 
ing hostility to the flag of our whole country, 
and entertain no fears of a misconstruction of 
our motives by you, I must remind you of the 
fact that a flag is not only symbolic, but it is a 
visible representative, and pre-eminently possesses 
political significance. It is in this country the 
centre around which clusters not only the na- 
tional glories of a hundred years, but the asso- 
ciations of turbulent, angry, and bloody contests 
of political strife, and, in my judgment, does 
not constitute a harmonious element in a semi- 
religious ceremony of this kind. I cannot more 



260 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



fully and pointedly illustrate this position, and 
at the same exhibit the recognition of its cor- 
rectness, than by supposing that we should place 
over the graves of the Confederate dead the flag 
which they followed in battle. Would there 
not arise throughout the land a whirlwind of 
indignation ? Of course there would, and it at 
the same time would demonstrate the true light 
and political significance which attaches to a 
national flag. Yet no one, not even the most 
bitter and illiberal Unionist, so far as J am in- 
formed, objects to our decorating these graves 
with flowers. 

" I regret that the time is too limited for me 
to submit this question to the association and 
obtain an expression of its wishes. I am con- 
strained to say that I do not feel authorized 
under the circumstances to assent to so radical 
a departure from our arranged programme as the 
introduction of these flags would be. Sincerely 
hoping that the truly patriotic and Christian 
spirit which inspired you to write this letter 
shall before the lapse of another year have so 
pervaded the hearts and minds of our whole peo- 
ple that there will be a unity of purpose, a unity 
of feeling as well as a unity of deed, characteriz- 
ing these ceremonies throughout the length and 
breadth of this country, and that there will no 
longer be afforded opportunity for the followers 
of Christ, the teachers of His doctrines, to give 
expression to their hatred, malice, and all un- 
charitableness, by sacrilegious attempts to prac- 
tise a fraud upon God Almighty when in their 
hearts they are praying to the devil. 

"It is proper that I should add, in conclu- 
sion, that the other two gentlemen of our com- 
mittee, Messrs. Young and Drew, concur in the 
views herein expressed. 

"With feelings of respect, I remain, sir, very 
truly yours, etc., 

"Alex. Y. P. Garnett, M. D., 

"President of S. M. A.' 

God grant that the catholic sentiments breathed 
forth in this correspondence may daily increase 
more and more until they shall spread over the 
whole territory of the Union, and when that 



happy day shall arrive posterity will not forget 
the names of those honest men, who, after bat- 
tling manfully for their convictions, realized 
that the time had arrived to cease an idle strife 
and recrimination without sacrificing aught of 
principle or aught of conviction. 

In all his professional intercourse, Dr. Gar- 
nett has ever been scrupulously punctilious in 
matters of professional etiquette ; not only ob- 
serving most carefully every point of courtesy in 
his own practice, but demanding and exacting 
the same from others. 

The following extract from one of his speeches 
before the Medical Association of Washington 
and Georgetown, on the occasion of an inves- 
tigation into the conduct of a member, is a fair 
example of the firmness and independence of 
his views : 

"If this association does not possess the 
moral courage, independence, and professional 
pride, to maintain its own authority, vindicate 
its honor, and conserve its principles, it is better 
that we should at once abrogate its constitution 
and adjourn 'sine die.' For myself, I have no 
concessions to make, no favors to ask, no com- 
promises to offer with wrong doing. With a 
' mens sibi conscia recti ' I shall pursue the even 
tenor of my way, doing what I know to be right 
without fear, favor, or affection ; and when my 
record is finished, and I am gathered home to 
the land of spirits, all I ask is, that there be 
placed upon the stone which covers my remains 
this inscription : 

" ' Hie jacet vir, 

Qui conscientiam tenebat, 

Fallaciam abhorrebat, 

Ignavum detestabatur, 

Atque nunquam verebatur recte facere.' " 

The foregoing sketch has been prepared by a 
Virginia friend whose acquaintance and admira- 
tion has extended over a period of thirty years. 
That it is cursory and unsatisfactory the writer 
well knows, and, as it was prepared without con- 
ference with its subject, it is hoped that what- 
ever in it may appear crude or inelegant will be 
viewed with that partiality always shown to the 
labor of friendship. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



261 



Solon, when asked by Crcesus whether he did 
not consider him the happiest of mortals, told 
him that no man could be considered happy 
until he was dead ; before he died the boundless 
wealth of Crcesus was scattered to the winds of 
heaven, and his very life was only saved by his 
remembrance of the philosopher's speech as he 
was led forth to be burnt alive. And so it is in 
the preparation of a sketch of the living that we 
know not what will be the supplement of that 
life of which we write. Strange and trying 
have been the vicissitudes of the past. Stranger 
still foj; aught that we can foretell may be the 
changes of the future. This much, however, is 
assured, if no more, that the man who combines 
truth and honor, devotion to principle, a stern 
and uncompromising sense of duty, unremitting 
industry, outspoken sincerity, manly independ- 
ence, and respect for woman, with a heart filled 
with the milk of human kindness uncurdled by 
adversity, will sooner or later gain the respect 
and admiration of friend and foe. No brilliant 
episode is necessary to the reputation of such a 
man, but he builds, and is ever building through 
every moment of his life upon a foundation 
firmer, broader, and more enduring than he 
whose meteoric honors have seared and scorched 
the track through which they came. 

Of all the public men of Washington none is 
more widely known, or more respected, or more 
beloved than Dr. Garnett ; possessed of a strik- 
ing presence, and captivating address, the merest 
stranger would at a glance recognize in him a 
man far above the unknown throng, and of all 
those within the range of our knowledge and 
acquaintance we can truly say we know of none 
more worthy of a sketch as a representative 
Southern man and gentleman. 

HON. T. M. NORWOOD. 

Georgia. 

HOMAS MANSON NORWOOD was 
born April 26th, 1830, in Talbot 
county, Ga. The Norwood family are 
of English extraction ; three brothers, 
one of whom was the great-grandfather 




of the subject of this sketch, having emigrated 
to this country about the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century and settled in Maryland, where 
they engaged in farming. They were hardy 
pioneers, and their numerous descendants are 
to be found in all parts of the Union : one 
branch removed to Tennessee, where, in Blount 
county, Caleb Merrimon Norwood, father of 
Thomas, was born, and afterwards settled in 
Georgia. His mother, Jeannette Manson, was 
the daughter of a Highland Scot, and was born 
in Abbeville, S. C. From Talbot county the 
family removed to Culloden, Monroe county, 
where, at the Culloden Academy, Thomas re- 
ceived his early education under Marvin Massey 
Mason, of Vermont, one of the ablest teachers 
of his day, and under his successors, Messrs. 
Morrow and Mather, was prepared for college. 
In the summer of 1847 ne entered Emory Col- 
lege, Oxford, Ga., an institution founded by the 
Methodists, and graduated thence in 1850. He 
commenced the study of the law under James 
Milton Smith, since Governor of Georgia, in 
Culloden, in September, 1871, and was admitted 
to the Bar in February, 1852, when he removed 
to Savannah and commenced the practice of his 
profession in copartnership with Claudius C. 
Wilson, a brilliant young lawyer, who afterwards 
attained to a distinguished position in the Con- 
federate service, and, when Brigadier-General, 
died at the close of the battle of Missionary 
Ridge in November, 1863. Norwood and Wil- 
son conducted a large civil and criminal prac- 
tice in the State and United States Courts, and 
among some of the more noted cases in which 
they were engaged was that of Baldwin vs. 
Lamar, an infringement of the patent of a cot- 
ton press. The firm was at the time but young 
in the profession, but both the partners having 
a mechanical turn of mind they were peculiarly 
fitted for the conduct of an intricate patent case. 
They appeared for Baldwin, the owner of the 
Tyler press, the infringing press being called 
the Duvall, and obtained a verdict with $13,000 
against the best talent obtainable in Charleston 
and Savannah, assisted by George Gifford, of 
New York, only second to Stewart as a patent 



262 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



lawyer. The case was argued in Charleston in 
May, i860, during the sittings of the Demo- 
cratic Convention, which adjourned without 
making a nomination : from which a division in 
the Democratic party resulted, and the election 
of Abraham Lincoln by a minority vote followed. 
At least $100,000 was involved in the decision. 
In the spring of 1861 Mr. Norwood organized a 
company of which he was Captain, but before 
going into active service he was elected to the 
Legislature by the people of Chatham county 
and consequently resigned his commission. In 
the spring of 1862, however, while still a mem- 
ber of the Legislature, on the tidings of .the fall 
of Fort Donelson, he joined the Chatham Artil- 
lery as a private, but while exposed to sudden 
change of weather in the tents was attacked with 
a severe affection of the eyes which necessitated 
his total seclusion from the light, and for five 
years he was unable to read or write and his 
sight was despaired of. This necessitated his 
discharge from the army and entire abstinence 
from the practice of his profession, and, under 
the apprehension that he might eventually lose 
his sight entirely, he bought a small property at 
the Isle of Hope and spent much of his time in 
open-air exercise, cultivating his garden, boat- 
ing and fishing. In 1865 he went to Philadel- 
phia for the benefit of Dr. Joseph Pancoast's 
treatment for his eyes, but, after a series of 
painful operations, he returned to Georgia but 
little benefited. The open-air exercise and ab- 
sence of excitement after a while greatly im- 
proved his sight, and in 1867 he was able to 
resume the active duties of his profession. After 
the termination of the war there was much pent- 
up litigation requiring adjustment in the South, 
and Mr. Norwood soon acquired a large and 
lucrative practice, to which he closely confined 
his attention until his election to the United 
States Senate in 1871. From 1868, when the re- 
construction acts came into operation, the car- 
pet-baggers had control of the State Legislature 
until 1870, when the Democratic party carried 
the State, but before the expiration of their term 
they elected Foster Blodgett, one of their stripe, 
to the United States Senate. The law enacted 



that the Senator should be elected by the Legis- 
lature elected immediately preceding the com- 
mencement of his term of office, and conse- 
quently the election of a Senator at that time 
properly devolved on the Legislature elected in 
November, 1870, which, as we have said above, 
was Democratic. The corrupt carpet-bag Leg- 
islature, being unwilling so soon to lose all con- 
trol of political power, illegally elected a 
United States Senator during the term of the 
Legislature before the one of 1870, which should 
legally have exercised that function, and in order 
that there might be no conflicting claim to the 
seat, and having the right to fix the date of 
meeting of its successor, postponed its meeting 
until the fall of 1S71. Foster Blodgett pre- 
sented himself in due course at the opening of 
the extra session in March, 1871, and would 
have been allowed to take his seat but for the 
intervention of Senator Joshua Hill, of Georgia, 
by whose influence his credentials were referred 
to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. 

At the session of the State Legislature, held 
in November, 1871, there was a lively contest 
among the eight aspirants for the position, but 
Mr.' Norwood was elected United States Sena- 
tor, and, in spite of the exertions of Blodgett's 
friends, was sworn in, December 19th, 1871. 
While in the Senate he was made a member of 
the Transportation Committee, and in the fall 
of 1873 formed one of the sub-committee who 
made an extended tour throughout the Union, 
taking testimony as to the best methods of 
facilitating cheap transportation by land and 
water. During the last four years of his term 
he was a member of the Naval Committee, and 
as such made a visit of inspection to the differ- 
ent navy yards with a view to a reduction of 
their number; the report favored a diminution, 
but no action was taken by the government. 

His argument in the case of Senator Caldwell, 
from Kansas, whose admission to the Senate 
was contested on the ground of bribery, was an 
able display of legal acumen and first brought 
him prominently into notice in that body. He 
was appointed on a special committee consisting 
of two Republicans and one Democrat (himself J, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



263 



to investigate the charges against Powell Clay- 
ton, the Senator from Arkansas, for obtaining 
his seat by bribery. The Republican majority 
reported in favor of the applicant, but Senator 
Norwood presented a minority report, making 
out a clear case of guilt against Clayton. 

Among his more notable oratorical efforts 
while in the Senate, many of which have been 
published in pamphlet form, may be mentioned 
his speech on the Civil Rights Bill, in April and 
May, 1874, in which, with an incisive vein of 
satire, he ridiculed the absurdity of this Repub- 
lican attempt to place the white and black races 
on social equality by act of Congress, and was 
successful in eliminating the most objectionable 
feature of the bill to the South — the school 
clauses — and thus emasculated the bill. He 
said : 

" Nine years ago four million slaves were set 
free; the next year clothed with civil rights; 
the third, armed with the ballot, like blind 
Polyphemus with his club ; the fourth, makers 
of laws, of governments and rulers of men, their 
former masters. Within this brief period they 
were graduated in the school of Republican 
statesmanship, passing at a bound to the degree 
of doctor of their learned laws ; and in ten 
States the whites were dismissed from office, 
and these learned Republican doctors were set 
up on end like ten-pins, and put in charge. 
History furnishes no parallel to this triumph in 
the plastic art since God made man of clay. 
There is but one recorded instance which the 
boldest fancy would dare suggest as a fit com- 
parison, and that is the redemption of the Jews 
from Egyptian bondage in a single night. But 
in that one fact only is the comparison good ; 
for though they were under the guidance and 
instruction of Omniscience for forty years, they 
did not make the advance in statesmanship 
which the ' man and brother ' attained, under 
the new dispensation, in forty days. Of the 
six hundred thousand who went out from Egypt 
but two were found worthy in forty years to 
give and administer law. The Republican party 
manufactured over six hundred thousand law- 
givers in forty minutes. The Jews were in- 



structed by signs and wonders, by miracles, 
and in the Decalogue, and that by the Almighty 
himself. The negroes were regenerated without 
any instruction and by the Republican party. 
Moses was taken by divine appointment from 
his bulrush cradle and educated for many years 
to fit him as a ruler ; but the ' man and brother,' 
while standing in the corn-field hoe in hand, 
and without any warning of the approaching 
calamity, was made a Republican statesman by 
act of Congress. His superior wisdom was 
needed by the Republican party to guide their 
councils, and they called him, like another Cin- 
cinnatus, from the plow and placed him at the 
helm of State. . . . Let no one suppose from 
the illustrations I have given of the degree of 
intelligence possessed by the colored people, 
that I mean to ridicule their ignorance. My 
purpose is far from that. No one deplores their 
benighted condition more than I do. Were 
they intelligent, educated, they would not be 
the tools and dupes they are of wicked adven- 
turers. . . . No, sir, I have thus spoken of the 
average intelligence of the negro race in the 
South — and which I might have illustrated in 
a thousand ways — to lay bare the folly, the 
wickedness, the crime of raising them from 
Egyptian darkness and semi-barbarism to the 
high, the responsible position, imposing duties 
and intellectual effort to which the genius and 
training of the Websters, Clays, Calhouns, the 
Adamses, Hamiltons and others not unworthy 
to be named with them, were only equal, and 
none superior. It was a crime against civiliza- 
tion and liberty which has no parallel in the 
course of time, and done solely to perpetuate 
party domination. ... I am arraigning the 
Republican party for the manner in which they 
treat the colored freemen of America in refusing 
to recognize them in all the social relations of 
life, while endeavoring, by national legislation, 
to force the poorer class of whites, who are 
their constituents, into social equality with the 
blacks. For, sir, this is the true issue made by 
this bill and they cannot blink it under the 

flimsy pretext of securing civil rights 

Republican Senators wish to compel common 



264 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



carriers to open their cars and ships to all 
comers alike; in other words, to force the 
whites to this intimate association and close 
contact or to stay at home or provide their own 
conveyance. The poor are here to be the vic- 
tims. The rich can gather up their velvet trains 
and sweep contemptuously by the poor whites 
and negroes banked and huddled together and 
take luxurious refuge in a palace-car. Thus 

money is to establish class and caste 

You would not encourage marriage between the 
two races, but you compel them to associate in 
every social condition. You tell your child not 
to gamble, but that he must associate with gam- 
blers. You tell him not to drink, but he must 
affiliate with drunkards. You instruct him not 
to lie, but chain him neck and neck with liars. 
You caution him not to make companions of 
negroes — not to marry one — but you tie him 
side by side in the tenderest age of life with 
negroes. And thus you tell him the negro is 
as good as he. You make them playmates, 
partakers of common joys and sorrows, asso- 
ciates at school, associates in pleasure, associ- 
ates in church, in public conveyances, at meals, 
when travelling, and lay them away to sleep 
their last sleep side by side. Every act is a 
declaration of social equality, and every word 
is a denial of your acts. . . . Woe be unto the 
political party which shall declare to the toiling 
yeoman, the honest laboring poor of this coun- 
try, ' Your children are no better than the 
negro's. If you think so you shall not practise 
on that opinion. We are the rulers ; you are 
the servants. We know what is best for you 
and your children. We, the millionnaires — we 
who are paid out of your pockets, will take 
your money and will send our children to 
select high schools, to foreign lands, where 
no negroes are ; but you, you who are too poor 
to pay, shall send your ragged, hungry urchins 
to the common schools on such terms as 
we dictate, or keep them away to stray among 
the treacherous quicksands and shoals of life; 
to wander on the streets and learn to syllable 
the alphabet of vice and crime, or stay at home 
and, like blind Samson in mental darkness, 



tramp barefoot the tread-mill of unceasing 
toil.'" 

In February, 1875, he delivered a lengthy and 
exhaustive speech on the Louisiana Law, in 
which he conclusively established the charge 
against President Grant of grossly violating the 
Constitution by placing the military over the 
civil power. W. P. Kellogg, the carpet-bag 
Governor of Louisiana, had used the United 
States troops, sent in September previously to 
Louisiana under his requisition, "to render 
such aid as might become necessary to enforce 
the laws of the State," to organize by fraud the 
Legislature, in January, 1874. Senator Nor- 
wood asks : 

" First. By what authority of law did the 
President of the United States, who, by the 
Constitution, is sole Commander-in-Chief of 
the army and navy, - delegate and resign this 
exclusive constitutional power to the Governor 
of Louisiana? Second. By what authority of 
law did the President of the United States, sole 
Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, 
turn over his troops and ships of war to the 
Governor of Louisiana to be used against the 
citizens of that State, when and how he pleased 
and for an indefinite period of time, and to en- 
force any law of the State which he, the gover- 
nor, might wish to enforce?" and proceeds, in 
forcible and eloquent terms, to recount the 
wrongs inflicted on the South generally and 
Louisiana in particular by the reconstruction 
measures of the Republican party. " When the 
war closed we laid down our arms, went peacea- 
bly to our homes, and set to work. The scene 
was sad beyond the power of mortal pen to tell. 
Two billions of property in slaves had vanished 
in a night. More than another billion had 
crumbled under the iron tread of war. Hun- 
dreds of millions more invested in Confederate 
bonds were swept away in a breath. Many 
millions more of Confederate treasury notes 
perished in the same instant. Besides all this 
nearly every planter was in debt, and his land, 
which, in the main, was all that was left of his 
estate, was covered by mortgage. Labor was 
disorganized. Negroes, elated by freedom, like. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



265 



children by new toys, played and danced and 
loitered. The white people were disarmed, but 
negroes were allowed to have arms because they 
were pronounced loyal. Farming utensils had 
been destroyed, stock had been used up in the 
army, and cattle largely consumed for commis- 
sary supplies." Then came the proclamation of 
President Johnson, authorizing the rehabilita- 
tion of the Southern States, and conventions 
were held abolishing slavery, State governments 
were reorganized and Legislatures and members 
of Congress elected. "At that hour the Republi- 
can party held in its hands the grandest oppor- 
tunity that has ever been seized or dropped by 
any king, monarch, ruler or party known in 
history. A spirit of magnanimity, which would 
have required no sacrifice of advantage from the 
war, nor the surrender of any principle of good 
government, would have won the Southern 
heart, would have given that party legitimate 
control of the intellect and patriotism of every 
Southern State, and have continued their rule 
for at least another generation." When, how- 
ever, it was discovered that the Senators and 
Representatives returned to Congress were all 
white and all Democrats, the discovery was in- 
stantly made that " no legalgovernments existed 
in any of the States lately in rebellion." " Then 
there was enacted a drama which, but for the 
calamities with which it was fraught, would rank 
as the greatest farce known in history. Then 
came that grand abortion called reconstruction. 
In its train have followed more pangs and woes 
than war with all its horrors has. It was a 
crime because it was a wilful trampling of the 
Constitution in the dust. It was a dishonor 
because it was an insult to a fettered people. 
It was a disgrace to American statesmanship. 
It was a blow at the life of the Republic. It 
disenfranchised the intelligent, the virtuous, the 
honorable citizens of the South, and gave power 
over them to the ignorant, the licentious and 
the base. It gave those who had neither prop- 
erty nor education the power to tax without 
limit the owners of the remnant of property left 
to them by the war. It bound the hands of the 
whites and turned them over unprotected to the 



unbounded rapacity and savage brutality of the 
blacks." And the motive for thus subverting the 
governments of the ten Southern States was sim- 
ply to perpetuate the existence of the Republi- 
can party and enable it to keep control of the 
government. All these crimes were committed 
to keep power in its hands. "Near a million 
negroes, finding themselves voters, became more 
turbulent than before. Crimes multiplied with 
amazing rapidity. Murder, red-handed murder, 
threatened the white race by day, and arson be- 
came an institution of the night. Blazing gin- 
houses, on the least fancied wrong, illuminated 
the dismal night like merry bonfires, and the 
profits of a year dissolved to ashes in an hour. 
Thefts were as common as opportunities, and 
opportunities were forced when not to be found. 
In the rural districts female honor was so often 
violated that men and women dreaded the com- 
ing night, and many abandoned their homes 
and took refuge in the cities. Reconstruction 
will be written down by the philosophical his- 
torian not only as the greatest folly of all time, 
but as the worst crime against civilization, hu- 
man progress and self-government that was ever 
perpetrated through the cunning or wickedness 
of man. It has no justification." 

Kellogg was the outcome of reconstruction in 
Louisiana, and to keep him and his myrmidons 
in power against the constitutionally expressed 
will of the people of Louisiana, President Grant 
gave him unfettered control of the United States 
soldiers, and thus enabled him to organize the 
civil officers of a State by force of arms. In 
1875 tne Senator also spoke against the appro- 
priation, on constitutional grounds, to the Cen- 
tennial Commission. His term expired in 
March, 1877, when he resumed the active prac- 
tice of his profession. In June, 1877, he was 
engaged in the celebrated Telfair Will case, 
which excited much interest at the time and in 
which $750,000 was involved. He appeared 
for the children of A. P. Wetter, who married a 
grandniece of Mary Telfair, the testatrix, a 
daughter of Edward Telfair, first Governor of 
Georgia, and succeeded in obtaining a decision 
that the children were the legal heirs, thus 



266 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



breaking the will. The speech he made on this 
occasion roused the jury to the utmost enthusi- 
asm, and was a powerful and brilliant oratorical 
effort, but the case was afterwards appealed to 
the Supreme Court and the decision in the Su- 
perior Court overruled. 

During a speech delivered at the Savannah 
Theatre on the 2d of November, 1874, at the 
time when the Democratic " tidal-wave" swept 
over the country, Mr. Norwood gave the follow- 
ing graphic description of that now almost ex- 
tinct monstrosity, the "carpet-bagger: " 

"The Reconstruction acts have wrought im- 
measurable evils, but perhaps the greatest of all 
is the production of the carpet-bagger. I have 
great admiration for the genius who first used 
that word, carpet-bagger. What can be more 
expressive? His like the world has never seen, 
from the days of Cain, or of the forty thieves in 
the fabled time of Ali Baba. Like the wind he 
blows, and we hear the sound thereof, but no 
man knoweth whence he cometh or whither he 
goeth. Natural historians will be in doubt how 
to class him. Ornithologists will claim him be- 
cause in many respects he is a bird of prey. He 
lives only on corruption, and takes his flight as 
soon as the carcase is picked. In other particu- 
lars he resembles the migratory crane: for when 
driven by the frigidity of social ostracism from 
the North, he flies with marvellous instinct to 
the torrid and unctuous embrace of his African 
mates and peers, among the swamps of our 
Southern shore. As the crane fills his craw, so 
this creature fills his bag, for the flight. And 
as the crane, when the days grow hot, flaps his 
wings, and, screaming through the air, returns 
to the North, so this ill-omened biped, when 
times become warm in the South, gathers 
up his legs, and flying, with screams and shrieks, 
away, perches on the wooden head of the figure 
of justice, commonly known as the Attorney- 
General, and drowns the air with croakings 
about Southern outrage and wrong. In the 
other respects he is like the marsupial family of 
quadrupeds, for, as they are named from the 
pouch or bag in which they carry their young, 
so he derives his name from the bag he carries 



and in which are stored all his earthly posses- 
sions. The opossum is of the marsupial family, 
and the carpet-bagger, like that animal, does all 
his travelling at night. Solomon was a wise 
man, but he did not know everything. He was 
wrong in saying ' there is nothing new under 
the sun.' The world has swung on for thou- 
sands of years, through wars and pestilence, 
through famine and plagues, has been visited by 
tempests and earthquakes, frogs and flies, mur- 
rain and lice, and grasshoppers, but never until 
the year of our Lord 1867 was any portion of 
the globe afflicted by a carpet-bagger. Solomon 
did not know him, nor did David or Jeremiah 
conceive of such a calamity. If they had, the 
songs of David and the book of Jeremiah would 
have been lost to mankind, for they would have 
fled the face of man at the bare conception of 
such a woe. Though he sprung into existence 
soon after the war, the carpet-bagger is no off- 
spring of that martial coition. The time was 
not 'gravis Martc' when he was hatched or 
littered. There is no look of Mars, but there is 
infinite speculation in his eyes. A reward as 
large as that offered by the Roman emperor for 
a new and savory dish could not tempt the most 
abandoned, perjured negro to swear that he has 
ever known a carpet-bagger to stand the fire 
which he has so often drawn by his incendiary 
work. His courage oozes out at his departing 
heels. During any ' little unpleasantness ' this 
Pharisee becomes, as by magic, a Publican, for 
he takes his stand ' afar off.' He is no product 
of the war. He is ' the canker of a calm world,' 
and of a peace which is despotism enforced by 
bayonets. His valor is discretion ; his industry 
perpetual strife, and his eloquence ' the parcel 
of a reckoning' of chances as he smells out a 
path which may lead from the White House to 
a custom house, a post-office, the Internal Reve- 
nue bureaus, or perchance to either wing of the 
Federal capitol. His shibboleth is ' the Repub- 
lican party.' From that party he sprung as 
naturally as maggots from putrefaction. His 
relation to that party is that of pimp to a bawd, 
for his meretricious service is rewarded in pro- 
portion to the number of innocent negro victims 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OE THE SOUTH. 



267 



he inveigles to gratify its lust for power. Like 
Wamba and Gerth, he never travels without 
wearing his master's collar; and he is equally 
content, whether turned loose to chase like a 
sleuth-hound the monarch of Southern soil, or 
called by a snap of the fingers to eat the garbage 
of his party. His collar is his passport to roam 
at large, and it matters not with what persistence 
he may break into a Southern gentleman's close, 
his master will not permit him to be muzzled, 
for he is 'the ox that treadeth out the corn,' as 
well as 'the ass that knoweth his master's crib.' 
AVherever two or three or more negroes are 
gathered together in the name of Grant, he, like 
a leprous spot, is seen, and his cry, like the 
daughter of the horse-leech, is always, 'Give — 
give — me office.' Without office he is nothing; 
with office he is a pest and public nuisance. 
Out of office he is a beggar; in office he grows 
rich till his eyes stick out with fatness. Out of 
office he is, hat in hand, the outside ornament 
of every negro's cabin, a plantation loafer and 
the nation's lazarene; in office he is an adept in 
'addition, division and silence.' Out of office 
he is the orphan ward of the administration and 
the general sign-post of penury ; in office he is 
the complaining suppliant for social equality with 
Southern gentlemen. His former neighbors in 
the unknown region, whence he fled, wonder 
not at his flight, but at his escape and conceal- 
ment ! But when, as sometimes happens, he 
reaches Washington labelled as ' Senator ' or 
' Representative ' from the province of Louisi- 
ana, or South Carolina, or Alabama, or Missis- 
sippi, and invoiced and consigned to President 
Grant or some of his henchmen, the romance 
of the transfiguration so veils his identity that 
those neighbors gather in the capitol, and with 
field-glasses in hand they wrangle and swear in 
the galleries in angry dispute whether the official 
automaton be Tichborne or his counterfeit. He 
is at best but Cinderella at the ball : 

" ' We wonder at his slippers, his face, clothes and hair, 
But the greatest wonder is, how he ever got there.' 

" Our wonder, however, is not as great or dis- 
tracting as his own. For when he thinks of the 



fairy Reconstruction, which wrought this mar- 
vellous change in him, and then sees the familiar 
pumpkin which he, from early and fond associa- 
tion, had come to regard as an elder brother, 
suddenly transmuted into a carriage and gayly 
caparisoned horses, and examines his glass slip- 
pers, and then timorously ventures to look down, 
down into the depth where his fairy found him, 
among the cinders and ashes of Southern deso- 
lation, his head swims and he instinctively leans 
heavily on Prince Ulysses' arm, and, doubting 
his own identity, begs not to be called Senator 
or Representative, but to be called by his 
old name, so familiar in Sleepy Hollow — 
Schneider." 

Senator Norwood has contributed extensively 
to the press, and his series of letters to Gover- 
nor Bullock, of Georgia, which appeared in the 
Augusta Chronicle in the spring of 1870, under 
the signature of " Nemesis," were a clever satire 
on Bullock's administration, and were highly 
appreciated and created great attention. Among 
his many addresses to various literary societies, 
his address to the Alumni of Emory College, 
Georgia, his Alma Mater, in July, 1S75, nas 
been published, in which he seeks for the real 
source of the great civil war, and deduces from 
it certain lessons salutary to all sections of the 
Union. He says: 

"The war was not for conquest and subjuga- 
tion, as is clearly shown by the animus control- 
ling it during its progress and by its well-known 
results. It was not for personal liberty, because 
the action of the Southern States in no way en- 
dangered the life, liberty, or property of any 
citizen of the States remaining in the Union. 
It was not for human rights, or even the free- 
dom of the negro race, as is sufficiently estab- 
lished by the repeated declarations of the war- 
making power, Congress, that the war was not 
to free the slaves. Every war for the rights of 
man has been defensive. Liberty is never ag- 
gressive — tyranny is ever. The war of the colo- 
nies against Great Britain, of 181 2, and that of 
1861 were in defence of constitutional liberty, 
personal freedom and private rights. It was not 
inaugurated from personal ambition, for it was 



2 68 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



not begun by any one man, or by any cabal. 
It was the act of the people of the Northern 
States, through their instructed representative 
men in Congress. It was not for power, be- 
cause they had all the power, and more than 
they had reason to hope they could acquire by 
war. Eleven States had voluntarily resigned 
and relinquished to the remaining States all 
power in the general government, and had left 
to them absolute control. It was not to pre- 
serve and perpetuate constitutional liberty. 
This is clear for many reasons: first, because 
aggressive war is the surest method to destroy 
constitutional liberty; secondly, because consti- 
tutional liberty was not imperilled by the with- 
drawal of a portion of the States, any more than 
if they had been submerged in the sea. The 
Constitution, in its operation on the remaining 
States, as States, and on their respective citizens 
as individuals, was as complete, as intact and as 
effective as when acting on all or on the origi- 
nal thirteen ; thirdly, because the declared mo- 
tive was solely to preserve the Union. Was it 
to propagate opinion? By no means. The only 
subject of difference was slavery. The North 
did not seek to convert us to their view. The 
fanatics so desired, but they did not shape 
events. The sober, cool men of the North 
counted the cost and cast the die. And they 
assured us, time and again, if we would return 
to the Union, slavery should remain intact. 
What, then, was the true motive, and in the ab- 
sence of which there would have been no war? 
With shame I say it — in view of our boasted 
civilization — of our religious professions — of our 
common treasure, blood and sorrows, in gaining 
the victory which led to the establishment of the 
Union — that gigantic war was waged for merce- 
nary gain." And of the lessons taught by the 
war, he says that "material interest constitutes 
the strongest motive power of a people or a 
nation. ... If material interests endanger the 
integrity of the republic, the next and cardinal 
lesson we have learned is, that in a community 
of material interests lies our safety from sec- 
tional conflicts and civil war. Had South Caro- 
lina been as much interested as New England, 



or New England as little interested as South 
Carolina, in a protective tariff, in 1830, nullifi- 
cation would never have threatened the Union. 
Had the North been as much interested in 
slavery as the South, the great .conflict of 1861 
would have been unknown. In other words, 
had the people of the republic been homoge- 
neous, brothers' hands would not have been 
imbrued in brothers' blood. To restore and 
preserve the Union, to make it stronger than 
our fathers framed it, we must have a community 
of sectional interests and a homogeneous people. 
. . . The war has taught us, also, much of our 
weakness and much of our strength ; much of 
our humanity, and some of our divinity. It was 
indeed a dreadful play which held ' the mirror up 
to nature — showed virtue her own feature, scorn 
her own image, and the very age and body of the 
time her form and pressure.' It has shown us the 
relative weakness and the absolute power of our 
own peculiar civilization. While slavery made 
us weak in our external relations, it aided in pro- 
ducing a civilization as grand as any on the globe. 
" Of the mighty men in civil life from Wash- 
ington, Jefferson and Madison down to a host 
of others now living, who were and are the mon- 
uments of our civilization, I need not speak. I 
speak only of the lessons of the war. It has 
taught us that the charge of the degeneracy 
of the South is the day-dream of the drivel- 
ling old man ancient. The intellectual power, 
military capacity, chivalric courage and lofty 
character developed by the war have never been 
surpassed in any age. And while I would not 
be invidious by distinctions, I assert that in no 
age has any one army been commanded by three 
such chieftains as Jackson, Johnston and Lee. 
But one age has ever produced as grand a char- 
acter and great a captain of martial hosts as 
Robert E. Lee. The age was a century ago — 
the man was Washington. The history of hi:; 
deeds is enrolled on the imperishable tablet of 
the heart of man. The volume of his life is the 
political New Testament of the enthralled of 
every clime and creed. The wealth of his fame 
is the richest legacy ever bequeathed to the race 
of Adam. His majesty with lineal hand confers 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



269 



nobility on crowned heads. On his brow as he 
looks down on all mankind, save one, serenely 
rest, in rival grace and honor, the warrior's 
chaplet and the civic crown. That one excepted 
is Robert E. Lee, in every attribute the equal of 
the Father of his Country. Washington and Lee, 
twin children of the same commonwealth, twin 
offspring of the same civilization, twin rebel- 
patriots in the same holy cause ; the very Gemini 
in the constellation of all earth's collected 
greatness. Washington was the first-fruits and 
Lee the full harvest of Southern civilization. 
Washington was its rising and Lee its setting 
sun. The threads of their golden lives form 
the richest bordering — the beginning and the 
end — of the grand fabric in all the varied 
woof and warp of time. Between their lives is 
bounded the only unclouded day of perfect free- 
dom. The one came up at the rise of the repub- 
lic — the other went down at its fall. Both drew 
their guiltless swords in defence of the dearest 
rights of man ; the one to establish the God- 
given right of self-government ; the other to 
maintain it. The one sheathed his sword not 
until the cause for which it was drawn was won, 
and joy smiled over the land ; the other sur- 
rendered his sword not until that cause was lost, 
and darkness covered the earth again. But it is 
not for me to pronounce the panegyric of Lee, 
much less to attempt to draw his likeness. This 
generation cannot give his true dimensions. 
We stand too near him, and he is so rounded off 
that we lose sight of his grandeur in the sym- 
metry of his proportions, as one who first looks 
on St. Peter's is deceived in its size by the per- 
fection of its architecture. The hour and the 
man have not come to unveil the colossal monu- 
ment of his fame. The light of that day may 
never gladden our eyes. Standing at its base, as 
we now do, we can only see it swelling in 
majesty towards the heavens, for around its lofty 
summit are rolling still the angry but dissolving 
clouds of war. But his life in the completeness 
of its sweetness and its strength is before us. 
The rich-toned harp is strung and its slumbering 
harmony woos the minstrel's master touch ; but 
there is no living hand divine enough to sweep 



the diapason of its mighty tones. In the fulness 
of time, when the present generation shall sleep 
with their fathers, and their passions shall sleep 
with them ; when detraction, weary in its hope- 
less task, shall slink away in shame ; when the 
next generation, as they move on, shall look back 
and contemplate his grand dimensions, some Pin- 
dar will be inspired to sing in fitting strain his 
triumphal ode and his encomium ; some Homer 
to tell in verse of Attic purity and strength — yet 
not so pure and strong as he — the epic of his life ; 
some Milton to test and prove his worth in the 
crucible of truth with his celestial fire. Yes — 

" ' His high and mountain majesty of worth 

Should he, and shall, survivor of his woe ; 
And from its immortality look forth 

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 
Immeasurably pure beyond all things below.' 

"And yet, while his military renown, which 
was the least of his achievements — for he had 
conquered himself and ruled his own spirit — will 
brighten with every succeeding age, let us remem- 
ber that it was not achieved by him alone. It is 
indissolubly linked with the glory of as brave 
a band as ever drew the sword or fought beneath 
a plume. The fame of Leonidas rests upon the 
altar on which were richly offered up the lives 
of Sparta's three hundred bravest sons. The 
laurels of Marshal McDonald spring green and 
fresh on a league of Wagram's field, because it 
drank the blood of the immortal fifteen thousand 
who followed where he led. The daring deeds 
of Stonewall Jackson, his rapid movements, 
which invested him, in the belief of the super- 
stitious, with ubiquity, and his sudden descents 
on the foe as he swept like a falcon to his prey, 
were only possible because high-born pride 
inspired his devoted band with a heroism that 
wearied out the stars in their march by night, 
and caught new strength from the rising sun as 
they rushed upon the flame of battle. So it is 
with Lee. His followers were nurtured in the 
same civilization with himself. Under the gra}', 
in the Confederate rank and file, beat the great 
heart of many a Curtius, Cowles and Ney. 
If his glory is like the sun, theirs is like the 
stars. When the splendor of the sun is veiled 



270 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



by night, we behold above us a few bright stars 
moving in grandeur over the field of heaven, 
whose names and pavilions and goings forth are 
known ; but in their midst is seen in close 
column an undistinguished host pressing steadily 
onward, nameless and unknown, no one brilliant, 
but all together shedding a halo around the 
skies. For ages ignorant man called them a 
congregation of vapors. But the astronomer, 
drawing nigh, and scrutinizing their' ranks in 
clear and passionless thought, has returned to 
earth with the revelation that they are an army 
of stars, differing from each other only as ' one 
star differeth from another star in glory.' And 
when the historian in after times shall turn his 
admiring gaze from the lustre of the greatest 
captain of his age, and from his brilliant sub- 
alterns whose names and deeds are known, to 
scrutinize that mighty host who, nameless and 
unknown to fame, barefoot and sore, marched 
under the banner of the Southern Cross, he will 
from their blended glory resolve their individ- 
uality and tell the children of this ignorant and 
malignant generation that they were, one and 
all, heroes as great as ever fought beneath the 
Cross to rescue from the Crescent the Holy Sep- 
ulchre, and patriots as pure in their devotion to 
liberty as the fathers of the republic. The civil- 
ization which made Lee possible, made it impos- 
sible for them to be else than patriots and 
heroes. ' They were swifter than eagles ; they 
were stronger than lions.' And while we 
ascribe all praise to the head that planned, 
equal honor is due to the hearts that dared, and 
the hands that cleaved the way to immortality. 
All honor, too, to our noble women, at once the 
seed and fruit of the same civilization, who 
not with 'arrows drunk with blood,' but with 
smiles and praise and prayer, as invisible angels, 
walked by their sides through the fire of battle 
and 'fought from heaven,' even 'as the stars in 
the courses fought against Sisera.' " 

Senator Norwood is a man of strong convic- 
tions and indomitable perseverance. Risen from 
the people he had his own way to make against 
the powerful competition of the somewhat ex- 
clusive and aristocratic class that monopolized 



professional and public life in the Southern 
States in his earlier years. Educated in a de- 
nominational college, and in his youth intimately 
associated with the ministry of the Methodist 
Church, he early acquired a certain reticence 
and prudence which has largely influenced his 
character in later years. As a lawyer, he stands 
at the head of his professional brethren of his 
own age, and is distinguished for the clearness 
of his perception, and his concise manner of 
impressing others with his views. One of his 
ablest efforts of late years was his argument in 
the Telfair will case, in which he succeeded in 
setting aside the will in the Superior Court, and 
though this decision was reversed on appeal to 
the Supreme Court, one of the judges paid him 
the compliment of saying that his argument was 
one of the most powerful he had ever heard. 
As a Senator, he occupied a high position among 
the many able men who then represented the 
South, but whose difficult position in the Na- 
tional Legislature, for many years subsequent to 
the war, presented but few favorable opportuni- 
ties for displaying their abilities. He gained 
the esteem and respect of men of all parties, was 
made a member of many important committees, 
and made more notable speeches on topics of 
engrossing interest than usually falls to the lot 
of members in their first term. As an orator, 
he is eloquent and impressive, and by the clear- 
ness of his argument carries conviction to his 
hearers, defending his own position with sound 
logic, and assailing his opponents with well- 
timed pleasantry. Extensively read in history 
and general literature, he has a classic mastery 
of language which adds a charm to his powerful 
oratory, while his clear illustrations of constitu- 
tional law and its application, and his vigorous 
and manly defence of the Southern people 
against their persistent calumniators, have gained 
him the confidence and esteem of his own sec- 
tion, and the respect of all. 

Prudent and careful, but warm-hearted, he is 
liberal in the best sense of the term, and though 
too bus)' and somewhat too reserved to make 
numerous friendships, he has many warm admir- 
ers and devoted friends. He was married in 




■'■■■■■ ■ . ■ ■ 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



271 




1853 t0 Anna M. Hendree, daughter of George 
Hendree, merchant, of Richmond, Va., whose 
wife was a niece of Peter Tinsley, in whose office 
Henry Clay read law. He has three children 
living, his eldest son, George Hendree Norwood, 
being engaged in farming in the southern part 
of Georgia. 

EUGENE GRISSOM, M. D., LL.D. 

North Carolina. 

*f UGENE GRISSOM, M. D., LL.D., Su- 
perintendent of the Insane Asylum of 
North Carolina, was born, May 8th, 
1 83 1, near Brassfields, Granville coun- 
ty, N. C. He is one of a large family 
scattered through the Southern and Western 
States, his father having seventeen children, of 
whom he was the sixteenth, and is related 
through both sides of his ancestry to some of the 
most important families in this country. His 
father, Wiley Hawes Grissom, was a farmer of 
the good old times, and lived to be ninety years 
of age. His grandfather, Oliver Wolcott Gris- 
som, was a relative of the celebrated revolution- 
ary hero, General Oliver Wolcott, a signer of 
the Declaration of Independence, Chief Justice 
in the Court of Common Pleas of Con- 
necticut, Major-General and member of the 
Continental Congress, who died in 1797, while 
filling the Gubernatorial chair of his State. 
General Wolcott's father, Roger Wolcott, was 
also Governor of Connecticut, and lived to the 
age of eighty-eight years, having been born in 
1679. His mother was the sister of the cele- 
brated John B. Bobbitt, who taught for many 
years in Louisburg and Raleigh, and is probably 
more widely known than any other teacher in 
the early era of North Carolina. By his mater- 
nal grandmother, Dr. Grissom is related to the 
Hendersons, Hilliards, Sneads, and other well- 
known families. His early education was that 
of a son of a quiet farmer, in those days con- 
fined to the work of the " old field-school " — the 
college of so many statesmen. At the early 
age of seventeen he engaged in teaching, and 
with the proceeds of his own exertions entered 



the excellent school at Graham, conducted by 
Rev. J. R. Holt. Completing a course, he 
returned to the teacher's desk, but in 1852 he 
was appointed, by A. Landis, of Oxford, Deputy 
County Clerk, and commenced the study of the 
law with R. W. Lassiter, Esq., of Granville. 
The following year he was elected Superior 
Court Clerk by the people of Granville. 

Having a natural taste for the study of medi- 
cine, he pursued it, under Dr. Herndon, of Ox- 
ford, N. C, during his clerkship, and entering 
the University of Pennsylvania in 1856, received 
his degree of M. D. in 1858, and before leaving 
the University, had the honor of presiding over 
an assembly of the large and influential class 
with whom he graduated. Returning to North 
Carolina he entered at once upon a large coun- 
try practice, extending over a wide area, with 
unceasing claims upon his energies and urgent 
appeals never disregarded from the poor and 
suffering. In September, 1861, being convinced 
that North Carolina had no alternative but to 
manfully accept the struggle forced upon her, he 
raised a company of volunteers, the Neuse River 
Guards, and joined the 30th N. C. Regiment, 
Colonel Parker, having declined an appointment 
as Assistant Surgeon tendered by Governor Ellis 
in order to serve directly in the line. His regiment 
was ordered to the mouth of the Cape Fear river, 
and continued in service there until May, 1862, 
when it was ordered to Richmond. Just before 
the opening of the "seven days' fight" around 
Richmond, Captain Grissom received a severe 
wound while in command of the companies en- 
gaged in skirmishing and feeling the way for the 
advance on the Federal lines, and was the first 
officer wounded after the army of Northern Vir- 
ginia passed under the final command of General 
R. E. Lee. The ball passed through the right 
breast, breaking the clavicle and fracturing the 
scapula in its exit. While still confined to the 
dreary pain and monotony of the hospital ward 
in Richmond, where his life was spared by a 
miracle in the midst of destroying erysipelas, 
he was elected to the House of Commons on the 
ticket with J. S. Amis and Robert Gilliam, and 
became the leader of the dominant party in the 



272 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



House, 1862-63, and was re-elected in 1864. 
The sessions were frequent and long, and the 
conflict was severe between the advocates of the 
maintenance of the privileges of civil law astride 
of military jurisdiction, and those who favored 
extreme revolutionary measures in the interests 
of military control, without regard to the char- 
tered rights of the citizens, as they thought, for 
the success of Southern independence. He was 
especially vigilant in defending the rights of his 
State from administrative encroachment, and 
reported the famous resolution protesting against 
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by 
the Confederate government, Judge Warren 
supporting the resolutions in the Senate and Dr. 
Grissom in the House on the same eventful day. 
Two of them read as follows : 

"Resolved, That while the people of North 
Carolina have ever been, and still are, anxious 
to strengthen the administration of the Confed- 
erate government in common cause, in order 
that we may have a speedy and honorable peace, 
we view with deep concern and alarm the re- 
peated and manifest infractions of the Constitu- 
tion by the Congress of the Confederate States ; 
and this General Assembly doth in their name 
protest against such infractions, as of pernicious 
example and fatal tendency." 

"Resolved, That the act of the late Congress 
entitled, 'An act to suspend the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus in certain cases,' violates 
the fundamental maxim of republican govern- 
ment which requires a separation of the depart- 
ments of power, clothes the executive with judi- 
cial functions which Congress cannot constitu- 
tionally confer on the judiciary itself, and sets 
at naught the most emphatic and solemn guar- 
antees of the Constitution." 

Dr. Grissom supported these resolutions in a 
speech of great logical force, appealing to a 
patriotism which looks to the lasting weal of the 
whole framework of society. He said : 

"The history of the dismemberment of na- 
tions may be searched in vain for a parallel to 
this struggle in which popular sentiment has 
sustained with such unanimity the proposed 
separation. The laborer left the plough, the 



mechanic his workshop, the old man gave up 
with patriotic cheerfulness his last boy, and the 
widowed mother released from her fond embrace 
her sons one by one until she stood, like the 
lifeless trunk of the forest, leafless and limbless. 
Such was the ardor and enthusiasm with which 
North Carolina rushed to the conflict for na- 
tional independence and civil freedom long 
before conscription was thought of or resorted 
to. So great was the public spirit of her citizens 
that from every town and district soldiers like 
' armed men from the teeth of Cadmus ' sprang 
forth with such rapidity that in a few months 
North Carolina had raised, equipped and ten- 
dered seventy odd regiments to the Confeder- 
acy. . . . They have endured privations and 
sufferings without complaint, met danger and 
death without faltering, and snatched victory 
from the jaws of defeat without invidious tri- 
umph. They have been patient in suffering, 
defiant in danger, modest in victory. Their 
bone:; bleach upon every battle-field, from Bethel 
to Spottsylvania's crimsoned soil. ... In the 
very inauguration of the war, it is true North 
Carolina hesitated to leave the Union for the 
then existing causes. She was anxious to avert 
the difficulty without bloodshed. She was slow 
to plunge the country into the horrors of a war 
of desolation, which would spread a pall over 
the whole land and bring mourning into every 
family circle. But when she linked her destiny 
with her sister Southern States, from that time 
she has done her duty, and her whole duty. . . 
In reply to the argument of necessity, the coun- - 
try asks, When and where is this encroachment 
upon States' rights to end ? We are engaged in 
a great struggle for freedom ; shall we sacrifice 
its principles among ourselves while gallantly 
defending them against invasion by others? This 
unnecessary suspension of the writ of habeas 
corpus is the entering wedge to military despot- 
ism. Was the tyranny of Robespierre less in- 
tolerable, oppressive or odious because inflicted 
in the name of the people ? . . . North Carolina 
has given up her peace, her wealth and her chil- 
dren, but she cannot surrender her sovereignty, 
her liberty and her honor." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



273 



Dr. Grissom was a member of the important 
Military Committee, and author of the bill to 
appropriate $300,000 for the benefit of the sick 
and wounded soldiers of North Carolina. The 
provisions of this act were instrumental in the 
relief of a vast amount of suffering throughout 
the State. He also vigorously supported a bill 
of similar intent, to appropriate $1,000,000 for 
the relief of the indigent families of soldiers. 
This act was duly passed, but as it was then late 
in the struggle, State credit had been too far 
depressed to render the proceeds available. As 
a member of the Military Committee, he was the 
author of the Ten-regiment Bill, which contem- 
plated the raising of ten regiments of troops 
under the authority of the State, sanctioned by 
the act of Congress, for special service in local 
defence. The troops were to be furloughed to 
plant and gather the usual crops, but to assemble 
on short warning for the defence of the coasts 
whenever threatened with attack. This was an 
effort to prevent the oncoming of the very season 
of starvation which eventually destroyed the 
army of Lee, as by a general atrophy, during the 
last two winters of the war. It has been esti- 
mated that 60,000 men were drawn into deser- 
tion, and back to their homes, by the cries of 
weeping and starving wives and ragged children, 
gaunt with famine. The organization proposed 
would have resembled the Garde Mobile as 
attempted by the French, or more probably the 
Landwehr of the Germans in the Franco-Prus- 
sian war, which proved so efficient an arm of the 
service that nearly every nation of Europe has 
incorporated the principle in its military organ- 
ization, as the most admirable means of preserv- 
ing the balance of armed contingents and indus- 
trial supply. The bill passed the House, but 
was subsequently rejected by the Senate, with a 
clamor against it, as hostile to the central power 
at Richmond, and interfering with the execution 
of the conscript law in the general defence of the 
country. Dr. Grissom spent his time during the 
intervals of his legislative duties in visiting the 
troops of North Carolina in the various camps 
and hospitals, and relieving their wants by aid 

from the State. Governor Vance had at this 
iS 



time commissioned him as Surgeon with the 
rank of Major, and his duties grew more arduous 
and unremitting as disease and death made fresh 
havoc daily, and the hopes of the Confederacy 
went out in gloom and overwhelming disaster. 
Nothing, indeed, was left in that dark hour but 
the offices of humanity to the stricken. The 
war over he returned to his practice as a country 
physician, but was soon called from his retire- 
ment by being elected to the reconstruction 
Convention called by President Johnson. He 
was placed upon the Committee to report the 
repeal of the ordinance of secession. 

Subsequently he received the appointment of 
aide-de-camp on the staff of the Provisional 
Governor with the rank of Colonel. Here it 
was his good fortune to render a beneficent ser- 
vice to the State by active and successful efforts 
to secure the pardon of many leading citizens 
who were at that time in jeopardy. In these 
quiet days it is not easy to realize the situation 
of public men in 1865. How much of the con- 
fiscation that stained the annals of other States, 
the effects of which last until the present day, 
and how much of personal indignity and jeop- 
ardy of life or freedom was saved to the fore- 
most men of the State by the moral courage of 
a few such men, will never be known. In 1S68 
he was appointed Superintendent of the Insane 
Asylum of North Carolina, and, accepting the 
sacred charge of the most unfortunate of our 
fellow-beings, and the solemn responsibility of 
providing for and watching over their interests, 
he rose to the dignity of the office and put from 
him all the turmoil of political life and the 
promptings of ambition. In 1868 he declined 
the nomination for Lieutenant-Governor at the 
hands of the Republican party, and since his 
stay at the asylum repeated offers of nomination 
to Congress and other positions within the gift 
of the people have been firmly declined. It is 
no small praise to the specialty of physicians for 
the insane throughout the United States that 
their record everywhere is free from partisan 
struggle, devoted as are their lives to the minis- 
trations upon the most intense of human agonies. 
Ably seconded by the assistant physician, Dr. 



274 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



F. T. Fuller, Dr. Grissom may be said to have 
revolutionized the institution ; radical improve- 
ments have been introduced in heating, lighting, 
cooking, washing, and ventilation — in the char- 
acter of the outbuildings and grounds, but more 
especially in the establishment of the harmonious 
system of administration by which the greatest 
happiness of all is combined with the greatest 
efficiency of service. Dr. Grissom seems to 
have been fitted by nature for the peculiar 
duties of his profession. Magnificently propor- 
tioned physically, his excellence does not con- 
sist in mere physical power : it is his great mental 
influence that challenges admiration and makes 
him especially fitted for his work, by the posses- 
sion of that inherent, moral, or mesmeric power 
which divines the cause of disease, the remedy, 
and the mode of cure, and which influence look- 
ing out of his eyes, even among the most violent 
of his unfortunate patients, inspires a respect 
and reverence that could be felt for no ordinary 
man. Perhaps amid all the generous apprecia- 
tion which his labors have received from the 
press, the medical profession, and the public of 
North Carolina, no tribute can be more grateful 
to Dr. Grissom than the graceful letter of the 
celebrated Miss D. L. Dix, sister of General 
Dix, formerly Governor of New York, to whose ef- 
forts the very establishment of the institution is 
due, and whose fame and works of humanity in 
connection with the insane are world-renowned : 

"Eugene Grissom, M. D., Superintendent of 
the Hospital for the Care and Cure of the 
Insane of North Carolina: 
"Sir: I cannot leave your institution, in 
which as the guest of the State and of your 
family I have spent so many days in observing 
the conduct of all the affairs which affect the 
well-being of the patients committed to your 
care, and not express my great satisfaction. 
Not only do I find you earnest and active in 
promoting the comfort of the insane and apply- 
ing all the means at your command for their 
restoration, but I see everywhere evidence of 
vigorous measures for improving the buildings 
and bringing your grounds and farms into higher 



cultivation for the advantage of the inmates, 
while you, at the same time, keep in view a just 
regard for the interests of the State of which you 
are an officer in trust. Your sense of duty has 
been joined with a discriminating judgment in 
the choice of officers and employes, who work 
in concert and harmoniously in all the depart- 
ments of the institution within and abroad. I 
especially congratulate you in the earnest and 
constant devotion to the welfare of your patients 
found in your friend and assistant, Dr. Fuller. 
The affection and respect which all manifest for 
him is the surest evidence of his merit. Your 
success, sir, under the very embarrassing and 
difficult circumstances accompanying your first 
action in the State Hospital is as remarkable as 
it is gratifying, and is an augury of continued 
and increasing prosperity. With esteem and 
just appreciation, " D. L. Dix." 

In May, 1877, a minute examination was held 
into the affairs of the institution, its organiza- 
tion and management, and several important 
changes were made by the Superintendent and 
Board of Directors. As the appropriation was 
insufficient to defray the expenses until the close 
of the year, the salaries of all officers and em- 
ployes were reduced twenty per cent, for the 
last five months of the year, and all work not 
absolutely necessary was discontinued for a like 
period. Every facility was given for this inves- 
tigation, especially by the Superintendent, and 
the reduction in salary was cheerfully acquiesced 
in by all. The total admissions to the asylum 
since its opening on the 22d of February, 1856, 
to December 1st, 1877, have been 1,226. The 
total number of discharges for the same period 
948, of whom 315 were cured, 122 improved, 
1S0 unimproved, and 328 died, leaving at that 
date under treatment 278. During the last year 
there were 151 new applicants for admission, but 
only 53 were received and that with great diffi- 
culty. The whole number under treatment 
during the year was 160 males and 157 females. 
There were 39 discharges, of whom 13 were 
cured, S improved, 3 unimproved, and 15 died. 
The cures upon admission were 24 per cent., 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



275 



and, including the much improved, 40 per cent. 
The deaths upon number under treatment 5 per 
cent. The number constantly pressing for ad- 
mission is so great that, with a capacity barely 
sufficient for 224 patients, the Superintendent 
has been compelled to care for, treat, and sup- 
port during every day of the year 278 patients, 
the highest number under treatment at one time 
being 287, the lowest 264, and the daily average 
278. It should be remembered that insanity is 
rarely recognized at the onset because so insid- 
ious in its character, and so apt in the popular 
mind to be confounded with ordinary infirmities 
of temper or various other forms of disease. 
Too often the golden moments of early recogni- 
tion and speedy cure are lost before some out- 
break forces the conviction of the dread reality 
upon the friends of the victim. 

The average expense per capita of thirty-six 
public institutions in the United States as stated 
in the report of the Superintendent of the New 
York City Lunatic Asylum is $266. 8r, while 
the appropriation for 1S77 to the Insane Asy- 
lum of North Carolina was but $226. 62 per 
capita, and Dr. Grissom in his report (1S77), 
makes an eloquent and urgent appeal for an 
increase in the appropriation from the State to 
at least $250 per capita. 

Dr. Grissom's long-continued efforts and elo- 
quent appeals for the increase of accommodation 
for the insane were crowned with success in 
March, 1S75, by the passage of the appropria- 
tion for the Western Insane Asylum of North 
Carolina now in process of erection at Morgan- 
ton. The Legislature acknowledged his services 
in the cause of humanity by electing him one 
of the Building Commission. In May, 1S77, 
the degree of LL. D. was conferred on him by 
the Faculty and Trustees of Rutherford College, 
N. C. Dr. Grissom was a delegate to the 28th 
Annual Meeting of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation held in Chicago in May, 1877, and a 
member of a Special Committee to whom the 
recommendations contained in the President's 
address were referred ; Chairman of Section 4 
— Medical Jurisprudence, Chemistry and Psy- 
chology ; a member of the Judicial Council, and 



seconded in a neat and effective speech the reso- 
lution of peace and good will among the Ameri- 
can Sisterhood of States. He was also a dele- 
gate to the Convention of the Association of 
Medical Superintendents of the Insane Institu- 
tions of the United States and the Canadas held 
at St. Louis, Mo., May 30th, 1S77, at which he 
delivered a very interesting address on the sub- 
ject of " Mechanical Protection for the Violent 
Insane." This address was called forth by, and 
was a reply to, a sweeping attack upon American 
Insane Asylums in the London Lancet from the 
pen of Dr. John Charles Bucknill, M. D., F. R. 
S., and a Commissioner of Lunacy in England, 
who had visited America a few years ago for his 
health. During his stay here he made several 
short visits to several American Institutions for 
the Insane, and from what he there hastily 
gleaned he proceeded on his return to England 
upon a wholesale condemnation of American 
institutions. Dr. Grissom's reply was based 
upon carefully gleaned statistics and entirely 
refuted Dr. Bucknill's hasty conclusions. He 
clearly explained the nature and philosophy of 
mechanical restraint, and proved it to be prefer- 
able for a patient to be held in mechanical check 
during paroxysms than to be allowed to injure 
himself or others by his violence. The paper 
was received with hearty applause, and he was 
thanked for his able vindication of American 
asylums. This address has since been published 
in pamphlet form, and has met with the highest 
encomiums from the press. At the meeting of 
the University Normal School at Chapel Hill 
in August, 1877, Dr. Grissom delivered a lec- 
ture entitled " Mental Hygiene for Teacher and 
Pupil," on health of body as necessary to health 
of mind, full of practical wisdom and enforced 
by many apt illustrations, pointing out with wise, 
skilful, and tender hand the dangers that sur- 
round the too ardent student, either as over- 
worked teacher or too sharply urged and am- 
bitious pupil, which made a deep impression on 
all who heard it. One well-known teacher 
exclaimed as he drew his breath when the lec- 
ture was finished, " Well, Dr. Grissom has con- 
vinced me that I have been treating myself, as 



276 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



well as my pupils, foolishly. I am going to 
turn over a new leaf." During this same ad- 
dress he thus eloquently referred to the Great 
Confederate Hero as an exemplar: "Let me 
point you to a great exemplar in your profession, 
whose arm kept a million men at bay through 
the smoke of a hundred battle-fields, and then, 
when hope furled her flags forever, buried in 
grandest silence in his own bosom his country's 
and his own griefs, and turned to teach the 
children of the men he had led in battle — 
greater at Lexington than at Chancellorsville, 
and who, when his great heart broke at last, left 
his gracious memory a gift to humanity. This 
was the man who, watching the last struggle of 
a handful of men in the last hour of defeat, 
cried, 'God bless North Carolina' — need I 
name Robert E. Lee?" This lecture has also 
been published as a pamphlet and met with a 
wide circulation. Another brilliant lecture 
which has been delivered by Dr. Grissom by 
invitation at numerous places in North Carolina 
is " The Border-Land of Insanity, with Examples 
Selected from the Illustrious Insane," in which 
he lays down the proposition that there is no 
such thing as a diseased mind where the body is 
in perfect health. But let this condition be 
destroyed by imperfect organization of the brain 
at birth, or by mechanical injury to its vessels, 
whether by violence or disease, or by poisoned 
blood circulating through its structure, and by 
degrees the man drifts into the catalogue of the 
insane. His examples are drawn from illustri- 
ous warriors, philosophers, kings, poets, pro- 
phets, artists, patriots and statesmen ; and in 
felicitous language and with apt illustration he 
proves that excess, whether mental or physical, 
be it inherited or self-imposed, is the unerring 
forerunner of insanity — and startles us by re- 
counting but a few of the illustrious of all ages 
who have dwelt in that mysterious border-land, 
the realm where genius and madness dwell with 
divided sway. 

His contributions to medical science have 
been " Mania Transitoria," an article published 
in the Transactions of the North Carolina Medi- 
cal Society, 1876. " Notes on Epilepsy," pub- 



lished in the Transactions of the North Carolina 
Medical Society, 1877. "Mechanical Protec- 
tion for the Violent Insane," a reply to " Notes 
on American Asylums," by John Charles Buck- 
nill, M. D., F. R. S., England, read before the 
Association of Superintendents of American In- 
stitutions of the Insane at St. Louis, June, 1877. 
" The Border-Land of Insanity, with Examples 
Selected from the Illustrious Insane," a popular 
lecture delivered in various places in North 
Carolina. "Mental Hygiene for Pupil and 
Teacher," a lecture delivered at the Normal 
School, at Chapel Hill, August, 1877; and his 
voluminous "Annual Reports" of the Insane 
Asylum of North Carolina. He has achieved a 
high and well-deserved reputation in his peculiar 
field of labor, having been elected Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Section on Mental Disease, by the 
International Congress, composed of eminent 
physicians, held in Philadelphia in May, 1876. 
Chairman of the Section on Medical Jurispru- 
dence, Chemistry and Psychology at the Con- 
vention of the American Medical Association, 
held in Chicago, 1877. Member of the Judicial 
Council of the American Medical Association, 
at Chicago, 1877. Honorary Member of the 
two Literary Societies of Rutherford College, 
North Carolina. He is also a Trustee and one 
of the Directors of the Peace Institute, a Presby- 
terian Female College in Raleigh. A member 
of the Executive Committee of the Agricultural 
Society, held at Raleigh. He is Deputy Grand- 
Master of the Masons of North Carolina, and 
made a touching and solemn oration to his 
brethren of the Grand Lodge on the death of 
Past Grand-Master William G. Hill. 

As a man, Dr. Grissom combines the gentle- 
ness of a woman with the nerve and courage of 
the lion. Amiable in private life, he has that 
mysterious magnetic quality which attaches to 
him every one with whom he is associated. He 
has a lofty scorn of everything ignoble or mean, 
and his sympathies are always on the side of the 
weak and the oppressed. He is the very soul 
of honor, as understood and appreciated by men 
of high integrity. Gifted with genius, he joins 
to it strong common sense ; and if he had chosen 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



277 



the profession of the law, he would have been, 
like S. S. Prentiss, as celebrated for his logical 
attainments as for his brilliant powers of imagi- 
nation. It is no wonder that a man thus en- 
dowed, and thus improved in the school of early 
poverty and of intense mental application, should 
have attained the high position he now occupies 
in the medical fraternity of the nation, and im- 
pressed himself so indelibly on the minds and 
hearts of the people of his native State. 

He married, January 10th, 1866, Mary Anna 
Bryan, daughter of Michael Bryan, of Cape 
Fear, a wealthy rice-planter in Brunswick county, 
N. C, and has two sons and two daughters. 



JUDGE MARR. 

Louisiana. 

iOBERT HARDIN MARR was born 
at Clarksville, Montgomery county, 
Tenn., October 29th, 1S19, and is the 
son of Peter Nicholas Marr, and grand- 
son of John Marr, of Henry county, 
His mother, Ann Goodloe Hinton, was 
the daughter of Kinbrough Hinton, of Wake 
Forest, N. C, and Letitia Harper, a sister of 
Robert Goodloe Harper. He received his early 
education at a school near Clarksville, Tenn., 
conducted by his maternal uncle, John H. Hin- 
ton, and from thence entered the Junior Class 
of Nashville University, whence he graduated 
October, 1838. Immediately after graduation 
he commenced the study of the law under the 
direction of his father, who although not a law- 
yer by profession, was well read in elementary 
and statute law. From his father he inherited 
the most profound respect for the Constitution 
of the United States and admiration for the wise 
and patriotic men by whom that Constitution 
was framed. He was admitted to the Bar early 
in 1 841, and practised his profession first at 
Hickman and afterwards at Salem and Prince- 
ton, Ky. He took an active part in the Presi- 
dential contest of 1844 as Assistant Elector in 
his district, which was then represented in Con- 
gress by Linn Boyd, and during the canvass 




edited the Princeton Examiner, in support of 
the candidature of Henry Clay. In May, 

1845, ne removed to Louisiana, and was ad- 
mitted to the Bar of that State in February, 

1846, by the court over which Judge Martin 
presided. He was admitted to the Bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States in Decem- 
ber, 1850. Beyond an occasional newspaper 
article, and recording his vote at each election, 
he took no part in politics until the Presidential 
election of i860, when he canvassed North 
Louisiana for Bell and Everett, the Whig candi- 
dates. He was opposed to the separate seces- 
sion of the States, and through the columns of 
the Picayune and "other papers, and in public 
speeches, expressed his views in favor of " Co- 
operation." When Louisiana seceded he went 
with his State and gave his heartiest sympathies 
to the Confederate cause. Born and educated 
in a Southern State, of Southern-born parents, 
his every feeling and interest were in sympathy 
with the South in the stupendous conflict which 
he had anticipated and striven to avert, and his 
feeble health alone prevented his active partici- 
pation in the war. When the Federal force 
took possession of New Orleans he refused to 
take the oath of allegiance to the United States 
and closed his office. In May, 1863, he was 
expelled under military orders with the rest of 
the registered enemies, and took refuge with his 
family on a plantation belonging to his wife, 
near Tuscaloosa, Ala., where he remained until 
the close of the war. In November, 1865, he 
went to Washington to attack the " Lawyer's 
Test Oath," by which, in common with South- 
ern members of the Bar in general, he was ex- 
cluded from practice in the Federal courts. He 
based his motion to be allowed to resume his 
practice in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, to which he had been admitted in 1850, 
on the ground that the act of Congress which 
required the test oath, deprived him of a vested 
right without due process of law, and was viola- 
tive of the Constitution of the United States, 
and that any offence which he might have com- 
mitted against the government had been par- 
doned, and he had been rehabilitated by the 



278 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Amnesty Proclamation. Hon. A. H. Garland, 
of Arkansas, now a member of the United States 
Senate, had made a similar application, and the 
two cases were heard together. Hon. Reverdy 
Johnson and M. H. Carpenter appeared for 
Mr. Garland, while Judge Marr argued his own 
case on a printed brief; and afterwards, when a 
reargument was ordered by the court, orally. 
The decision, rendered January, 1867, was the 
means of opening the Bar of the Federal courts 
to Southern lawyers. 

Judge Marr took no part in public affairs until 
1S72, when he supported the McEnery ticket. 
In August, 1873, he was chosen Chairman of 
the Committee of Seventy. In December, 1873, 
he went to Washington, and, in conjunction with 
H. N. Ogden, the late Attorney-General of 
Louisiana, argued before the Senate Committee 
on Privileges and Elections, against the claim 
of P. B. S. Pinchback to a seat in the United 
States Senate. He remained in Washington 
several months endeavoring to obtain from the 
United States Senate recognition of the McEnery 
government. On his return to New Orleans he 
took part in the trial of the Grant Parish prison- 
ers in the United States Circuit Court. In Au- 
gust, 1874, he was President of the Democratic 
and Conservative State Convention which met 
at Baton Rouge, and took an active part in the 
canvass of that year as Chairman of the State 
Central Committee. He was recognized by the 
people as a bold, fearless and outspoken coun- 
sellor, and to his eloquent denunciations of the 
lawless usurpations of the Kellogg administra- 
tion was due, in a large measure, the uprising 
of the people of Louisiana and the overthrow of 
the Kellogg government on the 14th September, 
1874. In March, 1875, ne argued the case of 
the Grant Parish prisoners before the Supreme 
Court of the United States. In 1876 he was a 
member of the National Convention that nomi- 
nated Samuel J. Tilden for President, and was 
Vice-President of the State Convention at which 
Francis T. Nicholls was nominated for Governor 
of Louisiana, and took an active part in the ex- 
citing canvass that ensued. On the inaugura- 
tion of Governor Nicholls, in January, 1S77, he 



was appointed one of the Associate Justices of 
the Supreme Court. This elevated position he 
has filled with that dignity, ability and integrity 
which has marked his whole career and has 
gained for him the confidence, respect and 
esteem of all classes ; while his bold and manly 
course in opposition to the Kellogg usurpation, 
and his long-continued efforts to restore consti- 
tutional government in Louisiana, have won for 
him the warmest regard and gratitude of his 
fellow-citizens. 

Judge Marr was married, February, 1850, to 
Mary Eliza Jane Marr, daughter of William M. 
Marr, his paternal uncle, of Tuscaloosa, Ala. 



JUDGE J. A. MEREDITH. 

Virginia. 

OHN A. MEREDITH was born in the 
county of New Kent, Va., on the 4th 
of March, 1S14. The Meredith family 
is of Welsh descent, and one of the 
oldest in the State. The name is found 
chronicles of Wales, among its kings, 
princes, and bards, from its earliest history to 
the day of its final and heroic struggle for inde- 
pendence. The name appears after the fusion 
of the many kingdoms and principalities of the 
isles under the British Government in Cheshire. 
During the civil wars, in the time of Cromwell, 
some of the family removed to the colony of 
Virginia. During the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century we find the name Meredith in the 
register of the parish of Stratton Major, in King 
and Queen county. The family is-assigned pews 
near the Governor's, when pews were allotted 
with reference to the social rank of the parties. 
In the early part of the seventeenth century 
Richard Meredith is living on a large estate in 
Hanover county, and was Inspector of Tobacco 
at New Castle, under the Colonial Government. 
He left two sons, Elisha and Samuel. Samuel 
was adventurous, and we find him, after the 
French war, petitioning his Majesty's Council 
for lands, in consideration of services in the 






^ ^.C^kz^L^^L 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



279 



war, under a royal proclamation dated 7th of 
October, 1763. He married the sister of Patrick 
Henry, and we find the Hanover Volunteers for 
the Revolutionary war meeting at New Castle, 
on their way to Williamsburg, with Patrick 
Henry, Captain, and Samuel Meredith, Richard 
Morriss and Parke Goodall as Lieutenants. 
Samuel Meredith served with credit during the 
Revolutionary war, became Colonel, and died at 
an advanced and honored old age, leaving de- 
scendants to be found to-day among the noted 
families of Virginia and Kentucky. His brother, 
Elisha, married the daughter of James Cocke, 
the Clerk of Henrico county, and lived at the 
old homestead in Planover. He had sons and 
daughters. Two of the sons, after being edu- 
cated at William and Mary College — William 
and George — died, leaving no issue. Another 
son, Elisha Meredith, Jr., married Anne Loyne 
Clopton, the sister of John Clopton, who repre- 
sented the Richmond district in the Congress 
of the United States for twenty years. Elisha 
Meredith, Jr., died at the age of thirty-four 
years, leaving a widow and large family. She 
was a lady of great intelligence, and gave to her 
children good educations. One of her sons, 
Robert Meredith, married Miss Anderson, of 
Hanover, whose family removed to that county 
from Bedford. He was a planter, and resided 
on the Old homestead, and of this marriage was 
born John A. Meredith. 

After attending the ordinary country schools 
of that day young Meredith was placed under 
the charge of Dr. Silliman, a Presbyterian min- 
ister, and nephew of Professor Silliman, of Yale 
College, who was then the master of a large 
school at St. Peter's church, in New Kent 
county. Dr. Silliman was a thorough scholar, 
and he took great care in training young Mere- 
dith, in whose mind and character he discovered 
high promise of usefulness and eminence in life. 
After several years of most profitable tutorage in 
this school, young Meredith, under the advice 
of Dr. Silliman to his mother, would have been 
sent directly from there to the University of 
Virginia, had he not himself expressed a desire 
to spend a' year at the school of Dr. William 



Burke, in the city of Richmond, then considered 
the best preparatory school for the university to 
be found in the State, or perhaps in the country. 
Having completed a term there, he entered the 
university in the seventeenth year of his age, and 
at the clcse of his third session he graduated 
with distinction, easily obtaining the degree of 
Master of Arts. His was the third class in 
which that high degree had then been taken 
since the first opening of the university. 

Young Meredith was remarkable among his 
fellow-students for his thoughtful and studious 
habits, manifesting but little taste for boyish 
games and sports. He was distinguished for 
the facility with which he mastered the most 
difficult intellectual tasks, and for the rapidity 
and thoroughness with which he ascended from 
step to step in the high and always heightening 
scale of his studies. At the primary and pre- 
paratory schools he was always in advance of 
the boys of his own age. After completing his 
collegiate course he entered upon the study of 
law in the office of Conway Robinson, in Rich- 
mond, and lived in the family of his near rela- 
tive, Judge John B. Clopton. Thus he had the 
benefit of instruction from both those accom-' 
plished, able and celebrated jurists. He selected 
the city of Richmond as the field for his profes- 
sional labors, and he came to the bar with the 
same resistless energy and zeal that characterized 
him all through the years in which he had been 
laying his foundation for it. In addition to the 
courts of the city he attended those of the neigh- 
boring counties of Hanover and New Kent. 
Very soon he formed a partnership in the practice 
with his old college friend and room-mate, John 
B. Young, Esq., which association was continued 
to the time of Mr. Meredith's promotion to the 
Judgeship of the Richmond Circuit, an honor 
no less deserved than his appointment as Attor- 
ney for the Commonwealth for the County of 
Hanover, when he had been but a few months 
at the bar, and which continued to be borne by 
him successfully until the mode of filling the 
office was changed by the constitution of 1S50- 
51. He rose steadily in his profession from his 
first entrance upon it, winning and retaining 



2So 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the confidence of his brother lawyers and of the 
community, extending his reputation as a jurist, 
and always standing in the front rank of his 
cotemporaries. Though repeatedly urged to 
become a member of the Legislature, Judge 
Meredith invariably declined, preferring to seek 
distinction in the line of his profession. In 
1851 he consented to become a candidate for 
the famous State convention of that day, and he 
was elected, among many other able men from 
every section of the Commonwealth, to aid in 
amending the Constitution of Virginia. His 
immediate colleagues were John Minor Botts, 
James Lyons, Robert G. Scott, Robert C. Stan- 
ard and Hector Davis. Judge Meredith took 
an active and prominent part in the proceed- 
ings of the convention; and on those grave and 
exciting questions, the mixed basis of repre- 
sentation and the re-eligibility of the Executive, 
his speeches were conspicuous for force of argu- 
ment, compass of thought, clearness of style, 
and the compactness of the powerful points as 
he made them and pressed them to conclusions. 
They were published in the Richmond Examiner, 
and at once by all thinking men he was regarded 
as one of the rising statesmen of the State. 
Subsequently he yielded to the importunities 
of the people, and, consenting to become a 
candidate, he was elected as the State Senator 
from the city of Richmond. He there main- 
tained the high reputation he had made as a 
member of the convention, participating actively 
in the discussion of all measures of interest to 
Richmond or to Virginia. And in virtue of his 
ability, his intelligence, his exalted character, 
and his easy, well-bred bearing, he was one of 
the most popular and useful men Richmond ever 
had as a representative in the General Assembly 
of the State. Whilst a member of the Senate 
he was elected by the people Judge of the Cir- 
cuit Court of the City of Richmond, beating his 
competitor, the eminent and able lawyer, Robert 
C. Stanard, by a very decided vote. He entered 
upon the duties of the office in July, 1852, and 
he discharged them with entire satisfaction, as 
was significantly shown in his re-election, with- 
out opposition, in i860. He held the office 



throughout the period of the war. When the 
wheels of the State government were stopped by 
military authority, after the failure of the South- 
ern cause, Judge Meredith, along with all the 
other officers of the State, was removed. As 
soon as General Halleck came into command at 
Richmond, in May, 1865, there being no civil 
court in the city, he was solicited by many of 
the leading lawyers to institute a tribunal for 
the adjustment of Confederate contracts. He 
created a court which he styled a " Court of 
Conciliation," consisting of three members, and 
Judge Meredith, Judge Henry W. Thomas and 
Judge William H. Lyons were selected, Judge 
Meredith being the President of the court. Full 
powers for the decision of all questions growing 
out of Confederate transactions were conferred 
upon them by the military order creating the 
court; a clerk was appointed to keep a record 
of the proceedings; litigants and witnesses were 
summoned by a sergeant, and the judgments of 
the court were enforced by a military officer; 
each suitor was required to deposit with the 
clerk a small sum to pay expenses. The first 
and most important question presented for the 
decision of this court was the principle on 
which Confederate money should be scaled ; 
almost all the leading members of the bar in the 
city took part in the discussion, as the whole 
community was interested in it. After the most 
careful consideration the court unanimously 
held that the Confederate money should be 
scaled at the date of the contracts. Judge 
Meredith was selected to deliver the views of 
the court, which he did in an able and exhaust- 
ive opinion. The decision was approved with 
great unanimity throughout the State. Upon 
the reorganization of the courts of the Com- 
monwealth, the principle thus established was 
adopted by all the circuit judges, and thousands 
of contracts were readily and satisfactorily set- 
tled upon this principle, without a resort to liti- 
gation. It continued to be the rule for the 
adjustment of such transactions until the decis- 
ion of Dearing vs. Rocker by a majority of the 
Court of Appeals. They reversed the decision 
of the Court of Conciliation, and held that the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



281 



time for scaling the Confederate money should 
be the date of the performance of the contract, 
or the payment. From this decision of a court 
of three judges, Judge Moncure dissented in an 
exceedingly able opinion. This decision of the 
appellate court did not receive the approbation 
of the profession, and it has given rise to most 
of the litigation growing out of Confederate 
contracts which has since burdened the dockets 
of the courts. 

When the Alexandria government became es- 
tablished in the State, in August, 1865, Gover- 
nor Pierrepont appointed Judge Meredith to his 
old position as Judge of the Circuit Court of 
the City of Richmond, and at the ensuing ses- 
sion of the Legislature he was unanimously 
elected Judge of that court. He continued to 
fill the position' until, by act of Congress, all 
the offices of the State, on the 20th of March, 
1869, were declared vacant. Judge Meredith 
then resumed the practice of his profession in 
Richmond, and by reason of his extensive ac- 
quaintance throughout the State and of the high 
reputation he had won on the Bench, he at 
once succeeded to a large and lucrative practice ; 
in the Supreme Court of Appeals as large as that 
of any lawyer in the State ; and he has been 
engaged, too, in many of the most important 
cases in the Federal courts. On the reorganiza- 
tion of the city government, in 1871, he was 
elected, by the Council, City Attorney, a posi- 
tion which he held two years. Since his return 
to the bar, Judge Meredith has declined political 
preferment, and though nominated for a seat in 
the Legislature from the city, he has rigidly 
adhered to the practice of his profession. He 
has since consented to serve the city in the 
Board of Aldermen, as it would not interfere 
with his professional engagements, and he has 
been twice elected President of that body, a 
position he now holds. 

As a politician, Judge Meredith was always a 
consistent Whig. He was a warm admirer of 
Mr. Clay, and he entered the arena of politics, 
for the first time, in the canvass between Clay 
and Polk, in 1844. He was chosen President 
of the Young Men's Clay Club, in Richmond, 



made speeches in various sections of the State 
during the progress of that campaign, and won 
a high reputation as a political debater; as a 
consequence of that reputation he was appointed 
elector for the Richmond district on the Taylor 
and Fillmore ticket in 1848. His Democratic 
antagonist in that contest was Robert G. Scott, 
an able lawyer and eloquent speaker. The can- 
vass between them was very active, and Judge 
Meredith acquitted himself with great distinc- 
tion, winning plaudits everywhere, and giving 
entire satisfaction to his party. At its close he 
was earnestly urged to become the Taylor candi- 
date for Congress from the Richmond district, 
but he declined, and continued to practise his 
profession steadily and successfully, until his 
promotion to the Bench. His political speeches 
were not only marked by great power of argu- 
ment, but they were distinguished also for the 
information which they imparted and for the 
clearness, force and easy elocution with which 
his views were presented. Whilst on the Bench 
he abstained from all participation in politics, 
though adhering consistently to his political 
faith as a Whig. On his removal from the 
Bench, in 1869, he was at once placed on the 
Central Committee of the Conservative party, 
and he has been active and prominent in every 
canvass in which the party has been engaged. 
In 1873 he became Chairman of the com- 
mittee, and his printed addresses to the people 
of Virginia, in that capacity, were recognized 
by all intelligent and discriminating men as 
masterpieces of true statesmanship — ■ strong, 
clear, and from first to last filled with the most 
valuable information. They were the armories 
from which the conservative canvassers in the 
State drew their facts, and many of their argu- 
ments with which radicalism in Virginia was 
so successfully assailed. Judge Meredith re- 
signed this position after holding it three years. 
He was sent as a delegate to the Democratic 
Presidential Convention last July, was there 
made Chairman of the Committee on Resolu- 
tions, and became known to the nation in 
reporting the platform of the party. 

But it was as a judge that he was eminently 



282 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



distinguished. When John Marshall, Chief- 
Justice of the United States, deprecated, in his 
thrilling appeal before the Virginia convention 
of 1829-30, "an ignorant, a corrupt, or a 
dependent judiciary, as the greatest scourge an 
angry heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful 
and sinning people," he gave utterance to as 
memorable words as ever fell from uninspired 
lips. Perhaps no language has been more fre- 
quently quoted than this celebrated sentiment 
of the renowned and venerable judge, himself 
wise, pure and fearless, and the best exemplar 
of what a judge should be. It might be difficult 
to tell whether ignorance, corruption or depen- 
dence alone, without the union of the other two, 
would constitute the greater evil. The union 
of the three in one man, elevated to the bench, 
is rarely if ever seen ; and when seen would 
make a monster indeed, of horrid and frightful 
proportions, beyond even those contemplated 
by the Chief-Justice : what was sufficient in his 
eyes to make of the judiciary " the greatest 
scourge of an angry heaven ' ' was the presence 
of any one of the three. 

In the person of John A. Meredith, who wore 
the judicial ermine from the year 1852 to the 
year 1869, presiding as sole Judge over the Cir- 
cuit Court of the City of Richmond, through 
that long and memorable period of seventeen 
years, not one of the elements deprecated by 
Judge Marshall was found ; but on the contrary 
justice was administered by him over the most 
important circuit by far in the Commonwealth 
of Virginia, and through all those chequered 
years of vicissitude and transition and peace 
and war, with enlightened, honest and fearless 
independence. His training had eminently 
fitted him for the grave, trying and responsible 
duties and severe and exacting labors of the 
bench, to which he was raised at the age of 
thirty-seven. He had been honored frequently 
by the people with high trusts alike in the 
Senate and in the State Convention of 1850-51. 
He had practised his profession with flattering 
success, not only in the city of Richmond but 
in the counties adjacent to it, long enough to 
have become perfectly familiar with the com- 



mon law, chancery and criminal procedures, but 
not long enough to have become so much of 
an advocate as not to be able to become a judge. 
He had enjoyed an extensive acquaintance, not 
only with courts and juries, but with the people. 
He was neither too young nor too old. His 
experience was sufficient, united as it was with a 
fine classical education and thorough prepara- 
tion for the bar in the beginning; whilst on the 
other hand, though he had shone as an excellent 
speaker in behalf of his clients, the conspicuous 
fairness of his mind had marked him out as des- 
tined to hold, with impartial and conscientious 
hand, the scales of justice between contending 
parties. We have hinted at the remarkable period 
of time during which this distinguished judge 
presided over the Circuit Court of the City of 
Richmond. The new constitution of Virginia 
of 1850-51 had just gone into operation when 
Judge Meredith began his judicial career, giving 
rise to litigation and construction of the first 
impression in many cases. The code of 1849 
was barely inaugurated : sweeping innovations 
in the old laws had been made by the revisers, 
compressed oftentimes into language of doubt- 
ful brevity, drawn together from reforms of the 
law in England and many States of the Union, 
and provoking, necessarily, the widest differ- 
ences of views at the bar. Besides all this, 
he filled in his single, unassisted labors, and 
throughout the whole time of his judicial life, 
the offices of a common law, chancery and 
criminal judge for this circuit combined. His 
docket in chancery was, we believe, even larger 
than that now belonging to our chancery court. 
His docket in common law was, we are confi- 
dent, much larger than that of our common law- 
court at present. His criminal docket was often 
heavy. He performed, therefore, what three 
judges now perform, with the exception, how- 
ever, that during his term of office the jurisdic- 
tion of the Hustings Court of the City of Rich- 
mond was enlarged by law in civil matters for 
the purpose of relieving the court over which he 
presided. With a numerous and talented bar of 
nearly one hundred members — with novel and 
1110M difficult questions of construction con- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



283 



stantly coming before him alike in constitutional 
and municipal law — with the vast and varied in- 
terests of a large community dependent upon his 
decisions, embracing a heavy docket in each of 
the three great departments of justice, Judge 
Meredith pursued his course with unwearied toil, 
with unremitting courtesy, with unfailing pa- 
tience, with unquestioned ability, with strict and 
unswerving conscientiousness. 

No judge was ever more regardful of the 
amenities of the bench. It was a pleasure for 
the young practitioner to make his maiden speech 
before a judge who never forgot to be patient, 
gentle and courteous to one in such circum- 
stances of trial. It was a pleasure for the older 
members of the bar to discuss the law's grave 
questions before a judge who wished always to 
have a full argument before he made up his 
mind, and whose unfailing patience was not only 
prompted by the instincts of gentlemanly refine- 
ment, but was based on high-minded and con- 
scientious desire to do what was right, and at- 
tain the ends of truth and justice. With pure 
hands and a clean heart, truly may it be said, 
did this distinguished jurist discharge his high 
office — without the whisper of fear, favor or 
affection on his part to suitor or to counsel — 
steadily and inflexibly anxious to do his duty, 
and his whole duty, and wearing the ermine un- 
spotted and unsullied even by the breath of 
slander or the suspicion of malice from any 
quarter. We believe that few men ever retired 
from the elevated position that he occupied who 
so well escaped the shafts of criticism and envy 
which that elevation invariably provokes. If he 
made any enemies among the bar or in the com- 
munity, we have yet to hear who they were. 
Pure, incorruptible, able, learned, laborious, 
conscientious, we regard him as having dis- 
charged the judicial function for so many years 
of trial and of trouble with a popularity and en- 
joying an esteem and admiration rarely wit- 
nessed. The plaudit of "well done, good and 
faithful servant" was not awarded without cause 
or without consideration. It was not only the 
precious reward of enlightened, honest and in- 
dependent discharge of duty, but of prompt, 



faithful and efficient administration of justice. 
The " law's delays " are included by Shakspeare 
in the catalogue of ills that flesh is heir to. 
They often amount to a practical denial of jus- 
tice, nay, to more than this, for to hope deferred 
is added the unending accumulation of costs, 
and an estate tied up in litigation is too often 
fritted away by piece-meal ere the relief can be 
secured through the medium of laws that are 
"slowly wise and meanly just." That com- 
munity is therefore immensely blessed, whose 
judiciary are industrious as well as pure and 
learned, whose judiciary " hasten slowly " in the 
despatch of business, and while guarding on the 
one hand against the grievous mistake of rash or 
hurried disposition of causes, yet on the other 
hand, by system, application and order, keep 
down the docket and dispense justice with due 
despatch. Of what avail in thousands of causes 
before our tribunals would be all the three great 
characteristics of a good judge — learning, purity 
and independence — without industry, applica- 
tion, system, order? Not that we would com- 
mend the practically unrighteous judge, who was 
once compared in his excessive hurry to disen- 
cumber his docket of its causes to " a boy in a 
watermelon-patch, cutting the melons whether 
ripe or green ; " but we all know on what easy 
terms the laziness or inertness or apathy of the 
court will grant continuances from term to term, 
until the subject-matter of the suit often perishes 
from delay. Expedition then, in a large class 
of cases, is of the very essence of virtue; and to 
secure expedition, the incumbent of the bench 
must be himself a good worker. The officers of 
the court take their cue from him. His zeal 
and energy are directly infused into them. The 
community receive the reflected influence. The 
bar are taught at once the necessity for diligence 
and readiness. The suitor is the fortunate 
recipient of the wholesome example and com- 
manding precepts of the court. Judge Mere- 
dith was a conspicuous instance, while on the 
bench, of what we would call a good worker. 
That he gave his whole time with assiduous care, 
and his whole strength of mind and body, to his 
court and its many exactions, will not be denied 



284 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



by any one, and could be abundantly established 
by the immense amount of business that he de- 
spatched from year to year. 

It would occupy far more space than is allowed 
to this notice of his judicial career, to sketch 
however briefly the scope and series of his decis- 
ions ; yet we cannot forbear from giving a hasty 
review of several, involving points of interest 
and novelty, which not only the profession but 
the general reader may enjoy. 

In the year 1S55, in Cronin's case, who was 
indicted for the murder of his wife, the Rev. 
John Theeling, a Roman Catholic priest, was 
called as a witness by the defence. In the 
course of his examination, it was sought to ex- 
tract from him the secrets of the confessional, 
and the question arose whether a Catholic priest 
is compellable to disclose any declaration made 
to him under the seal of that sacrament. Father 
Theeling declined, in" firm but respectful terms, 
to disclose what he had acquired " in the qual- 
ity of a Catholic minister of the sacrament of 
penances," and announced that, although instant 
death were to be the penalty of his refusal, no 
power on earth, ecclesiastical, spiritual or tem- 
poral — not even the request, admonition or 
command of the Pope himself — could dispense 
with the perpetual obligation of secrecy resting 
upon him. The question excited at the time 
interest, not only from its legal but its political 
bearings. The great Know-Nothing excitement 
was at its height. The legal point was one of 
first impression in "Virginia. But little light 
could be gathered from the books, and that was 
conflicting. The whole range of the English 
reports furnished no case in which the question 
had ever arisen in respect to a Romish priest. 
Only loose dicta of judges upon the general ques- 
tion of exemption of clergymen from disclosing 
communications made to them by a prisoner in 
cases not involving degradation, breach of oaths 
and a violation of clerical duties, could be found 
in the elementary books, and those loose dicta 
were in conflict with one another. With the 
exception of the General Sessions Court for New 
York City, no case could be found where the 
point had been decided in America. It was in- 



deed a very grave and difficult question, as well 
as most interesting to the profession and the 
general community. Shall the priest of the 
Romish Church be compelled to stand in the 
dreadful predicament of ecclesiastical perjury 
and degradation, if he answers, or judicial per- 
jury and penalties, if he does not answer? On 
the other hand, it was insisted that the conceal- 
ment of what was disclosed by auricular confes- 
sion was at war with the common-law require- 
ment, that every person is bound, whenever 
called upon in a court of justice, to testify what- 
ever he may know material to the issue. After 
full and able discussion, Judge Meredith deliv- 
ered an opinion of marked ability, from which 
we have imperfectly sought above to condense 
the prominent features of the case then before 
him. It was an opinion that, whether right or 
wrong, did credit to his independence as a judge. 
He held that Father Theeling was entitled to 
the privilege of declining to answer questions 
touching the confessional, alike by authority as 
far as the decisions had gone, by analogy to the 
professional privileges of attorneys, by the spirit 
of our organic and statutory enactments, if not 
by their letter. That the sacraments of a relig- 
ion are its most essential elements ; and that the 
administration of its ordinances and ceremonies 
is essential to its free exercise. It will be found 
in the first volume of the Quarterly Law Journal, 
April, 1856, and covers many pages. 

One of the dearest rights of freemen is, that 
no man can be compelled to give evidence 
against himself. This great privilege of the 
citizen was ably vindicated and upheld by Judge 
Meredith in the ex parte case of Roger A. Pryor, 
which came before him in 1858 upon a writ of 
habeas corpus. His decision and the arguments 
of counsel will be found in the third volume of 
the Law Journal. The case grew out of the 
duel between O. J. Wise and Sherrard Clemens. 
The witness claimed his privilege in spite of the 
act of the Legislature, which had been passed 
expressly to meet cases of this sort, and which 
declared that every person engaged in a duel 
might be required to testify in a prosecution 
against any one but himself, and sought to pro- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



285 



vide indemnity to the witness by declaring 
further that any statement made by him should 
not be used against him in any prosecution 
against himself. Judge Meredith held that this 
act did not deprive the witness of his right to 
refuse to answer any question that might subject 
him to a criminal prosecution, and did not en- 
large the power of the court to compel disclos- 
ures which, before its enactment, the witness 
might withhold ; that, while the court was al- 
ways the sole judge of the legality of every ques- 
tion, yet the oath of the witness when unim- 
peached should have great weight over the mind 
of the judge in coming to its conclusion, and 
conclusive weight unless other facts proved that 
the witness was in error or trifling with justice. 
This important decision could not then be re- 
viewed by the Court of Appeals because the 
Commonwealth had no right of appeal ; but at 
a later day, in Cullen's case (24th Grattan), that 
court fully affirmed the correctness of the prin- 
ciples held by Judge Meredith in Pryor's case. 
We believe that he was counsel in Cullen's case, 
though his name does not appear as such in the 
report of it. The decision of the Court of 
Appeals in Cullen's case was a flattering com- 
pliment to the ability of Judge Meredith in this 
very important branch of the administration of 
justice. 

Another great and leading cause that came 
before him on the bench was the celebrated case 
of Taylor vs. Stearns, a case in which the stay 
law was involved and held by him to be uncon- 
stitutional. We have never seen the opinion 
of the lower court, but have heard it most highly 
spoken of as an instance of judicial learning and 
ability. The stay law was an early measure 
of legislation after the war. It passed both 
branches of the Legislature by a large majority. 
Neither time nor space is allowed us to recall 
here the immense questions of law and interests 
at stake in this suit. We only desire to record 
his decision in it as full of labor and of learning, 
and to say that he reversed the foregone con- 
clusion of the Legislature that the act was con- 
stitutional and was sustained by the Court of 
Appeals. 



The great civil causes of Mayo vs. Carrington 
and Neilson vs. Haxall were also decided by 
Judge Meredith during his term of office ; con- 
stituting immense records involving most diffi- 
cult and novel questions, and requiring vast 
labor as well as ability to master them. We 
believe his views in each of these cases were sus- 
tained by the Court of Appeals. In the latter 
case, among other interesting questions, there 
came up the doctrine of riparian rights and 
water-power privileges. 

In a controversy growing out of the sale of 
the medical publication known as " The Stetho- 
scope," and its combination with the Virginia 
Medical Journal, it became the duty of Judge 
Meredith, in the year 1856, to pass on the ques- 
tion of "Literary Piracy." His opinion is pub- 
lished in the first volume of the Law Journal, and 
will be found to be elaborate and most interest- 
ing. Its main features are, that literary property 
is like that over patents for invention, as far as 
courts of equity are concerned to protect it ; that 
these courts will promptly enjoin any violation 
of a clear legal right, which might become an 
irremediable injury; but where the legal right 
is in dispute, that they will decline to interfere 
the extraordinary relief of an injunction, prefer- 
ring to put the party to the prior necessity of 
establishing his right at law before conferring 
the equitable remedy. 

But here we must stop even this brief review 
of what we might call the celebrated causes de- 
cided by this distinguished Judge during his 
long service on the bench. Enough of these 
causes have been cited by us to show that his 
office was by no means a sinecure ; that every 
sort of question came up before him ; that he 
dispensed civil and criminal justice with care, 
labor, research, patience, courtesy, ability, learn- 
ing, fairness ; and that in him the Common- 
wealth of Virginia possessed a valuable, pure, 
and upright servant. 

In recognition of his attainments as a jurist, 
Richmond College conferred on Judge Mere- 
dith the degree of LL. D. 

Judge Meredith married, in 1838, Sarah Ann, 
daughter of William Bernard, of Belk Grove, 



2 S6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



King George county, a lady of rare beauty and 
accomplishments. Of the twelve children of 
their marriage but five survive. Their eldest 
son, William Bernard Meredith, graduated at 
the University of Virginia with marked distinc- 
tion, and was the first Master of Arts, whose 
father had taken the same degree. He entered 
the Confederate service at the beginning of the 
war as a Lieutenant, became Adjutant of a bat- 
talion of artillery, and whilst serving in this 
capacity was taken sick in camp, returned home 
and died in the twenty-second year of his age. 
He was a young man of high intellectual attain- 
ments, and gave great promise of future useful- 
ness and distinction. 



JUDGE FITZHUGH. 

Virginia. 

DWARD HENRY FITZHUGH, born 
September 21st, 1816, at the residence 
of his maternal grandfather, Dr. Henry 
F. Thornton, in the county of Caro- 
line, Va. Son of Edward Digges Fitz- 
hugh, of Prince William county, Va. The 
Fitzhugh family is a very ancient and honorable 
one in England; some of its members were high 
in office and favor during the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries. The first who settled in this 
country was William Fitzhugh ; his father was a 
lawyer in London, and himself of that profes- 
sion. He settled in Westmoreland county, Va., 
in 16 — , was an eminent and successful lawyer, 
and published in England a work on the laws 
of Virginia, and was much engaged in the man- 
agement of land causes for the great land-owners, 
whether residing in England or America. He 
transacted business with and purchased lands 
from Lord Culpepper, who held a grant from 
King Charles for all Virginia. He married 
Miss Tucker, of Westmoreland county, Va., and 
died in 1701, leaving a large family and 54,000 
acres of land in King George and Stafford coun- 
ties. A large number of his descendants have 
remained in Virginia until the present time. 
Mary, daughter of a William Fitzhugh, of Chat- 




ham, married Washington Curtis, grandson of 
the wife of General Washington. The Fitz- 
hughs are also connected by marriage with the 
Lees, of Virginia. 

Edward Henry Fitzhugh's early education 
was conducted at the Warrenton Academy, 
Fauquier county, Va. Studied law at Warren- 
ton under William F. Randolph and Robert E. 
Scott, one of the most prominent lawyers in the 
State during 1835-37, and in the latter year was 
licensed and commenced practice in Wheeling, 
Va., now West Virginia. After about a year's 
practice he took charge of the clerk's office in 
the County Court of Ohio county, Va., where 
he remained about three years, and resigning 
returned to the practice of his profession, which 
he followed until the outbreak of the war in 
1861. During the latter portion of this time he 
was engaged in almost every case of importance 
coming before the courts. Although frequently 
urged to become a candidate for office, he al- 
ways declined, having no taste for political life, 
although he took an active interest in his party, 
that of the Old-Line Whig. On the passage of 
the ordinance of secession he left Wheeling for 
Richmond, and was appointed by the Virginia 
State authorities to arrange and settle the claims 
of the State of Virginia against the Confederate 
government for expenses incurred by the State 
in raising, equipping, and arming troops, which 
were afterwards transferred to the Confederate 
government, and the expenses of which that 
government assumed to refund to the State. 
In the discharge of these duties he was second 
in command in the Quartermaster's Department 
of the State of Virginia, and at the close of the 
war was Acting Quartermaster-General of the 
State. The expenditure of money incurred by 
Virginia before her union with the Confederacy 
under the provisional government was to be 
met and provided for by the Confederate gov- 
ernment ; 70.000 to So, 000 men had been 
raised, equipped, and armed. 

After the close of the war he resumed the 
practice of his profession in Richmond, uniting 
with ex-Governor Henry A. Wise, their partner- 
ship continuing until 1S70, when, upon the re- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



2S7 



organization of the State government under the 
reconstruction Acts of Congress, he was elected 
by the Legislature Judge of the Chancery Court 
of the City of Richmond, which position he 
still holds. There was an immense accumula- 
tion of business during the war and the military 
occupation of the State, the military judges 
having neither the capacity for chancery prac- 
tice nor the confidence of the people. Judge 
Fitzhugh has cleared off all those arrearages, 
and has since always kept abreast of the current 
business of his court. He has been an elder in 
the Presbyterian Church for upwards of thirty 
years, and has also taken an active interest in 
its welfare, having been several times member 
of the General Assembly, and also of the Com- 
mittee of Publication, whose duties are to super- 
vise the publication of religious and Sabbath 
school literature. He married, in 183S, Miss 
Maria Gordon, daughter of Samuel Gordon, 
Fauquier county, Va., uncle of General William 
F. Gordon, of Albemarle, a prominent member 
of Congress from Virginia. Judge Fitzhugh 
has been an Oddfellow for many years, having 
served in the Grand Lodge of the United States 
as representative from Virginia twenty-two years, 
and presided over the Grand Lodge of the United 
States held at Nashville in i860 as Deputy 
Grand Sire. Was Grand Master of the order 
in Virginia in 1850-51. 



HON. J. L. M. CURRY, LL. D. 

.^. Virginia. 

n 6#ABEZ LAMAR MONROE CURRY 
was born, June 5th, 1825, in Lincoln 
county, Ga., where his father was a 
large and successful planter. His an- 
" 9 cestors on his mother's side were Welsh 
and Huguenot; General Wynn, for whom Winns- 
boro' in South Carolina was named, and a Col- 
onel in the Revolutionary army, as well as a 
Representative in Congress from the Palmetto 
State for fifteen years, having been one of his 
maternal ancestors, and a Lamar, of a Huguenot 
family who fled from France on account of re- 



ligious persecution, the other. In his thir- 
teenth year he removed with his father to Ala- 
bama, where he continued to reside until some 
ten years ago. He was educated at the Univer- 
sity of Georgia, from which he graduated in 
1843, and studied law at the Harvard Law 
School, Cambridge, Mass., graduating in 1845, 
and having among his classmates Rutherford B. 
Hayes, now President of the United States, the 
late Anson Burlingame, M. C, and Commis- 
sioner to and from China, and A. Oakey Hall, 
formerly Mayor of New York. He rapidly 
acquired distinction at the bar ; but the public 
service for which he had already shown his 
aptitude soon withdrew him from the pursuit 
of his profession. In 1846 he served for a time 
as a soldier of the Mexican war, being a member 
of Hay's regiment of Texas Rangers. On his 
return he was thrice elected as the Representa- 
tive of Talladega county in the Legislature of 
Alabama. During his service in that body he 
drew up a report in favor of a geological survey 
of the State, and influenced the enactment of a 
law providing for it ; strongly advocated inter- 
nal improvements; and, above all, participated 
largely in efforts on behalf of education, the 
earnest advocacy of which has identified his 
name with the cause not in Alabama only, but 
throughout the Union at large. 

In 1855, when he last stood for the Legisla- 
ture, he became conspicuous for the zeal and 
ability with which he opposed the Know-Noth- 
ing party, carrying his county, the political 
battle-ground of the State, by two hundred and 
fifty-five votes. In 1856 he was a Presidential 
Elector on the Buchanan ticket; and in 1857, 
and again in 1859, was elected to Congress, 
serving through the critical period immediately 
preceding the civil war. Of the prominent men 
in Congress at that time many are leading spirits 
in our politics to-day — Conkling, Lamar, Sher- 
man, Pendleton, Stephens, S. S. Cox, Charles 
Francis Adams, John W. Stevenson — while 
many others, equally able and not less promi- 
nent, have passed away — Vallandigham, Keitt, 
Millson, Thaddeus Stevens, Humphrey Mar- 
shall, Thomas A. R. Nelson, Henry Winter 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Davis; but he did not find himself dwarfed 
even by the tallest of these spirits. On the con- 
trary, the very first speech that he delivered in 
his place extorted from the New York Tribune, 
then the Coryphaeus of the Radical press, the 
significant admission, that he was "a powerful 
addition to the pro-slavery side of the House," 
though coupled with the qualification, as signifi- 
cant in its way, that he owed his gentlemanly 
bearing and scholarly training to the polishing 
hand of Harvard, applied to him, it must be 
supposed, during his brief attendance at the 
Harvard Law School ! The impression, per- 
sonal, political and intellectual, made by his 
first speech in Congress, was deepened and fixed 
by his subsequent speeches, all of which dis- 
played the same dignity of manner, the same 
zeal in defence of the rights of the States, and 
the same energy of thought, richness of knowl- 
edge, thoroughness of culture, and force of 
oratory, with a progressive effectiveness due to 
his increasing familiarity with the forms of the 
House and the temper of the members. Al- 
though not a frequent speaker, he spoke on 
nearly every important question that came up or 
remained up during his period of service, in- 
cluding the admission of Kansas under the 
Lecompton Constitution (the topic of his mai- 
den speech in the House), squatter-sovereignty, 
retrenchment, the tariff, the progress of anti- 
slavery, the Republican party, and the bill 
granting pensions to the soldiers of 1812, which 
last was ultimately defeated through the influ- 
ence of his speech, regarded by not a few "as 
the ablest and most statesmanlike of his Con- 
gressional efforts," and undoubtedly a clear and 
admirable vindication of the true functions of 
government as defined by Mill and Herbert 
Spencer. His eloquence, indeed, combined 
with his character to rank him from the outset 
among the foremost of the Democratic leaders 
in Congress. In i860 he supported Breckinridge 
for the Presidency, and, on the election of Lin- 
coln, consistently adhered to the views which 
he had previously declared in the House, and 
urged the secession of Alabama, believing that 
the formation of a new Confederacy had become 



necessary to preserve the self-government of the 
States. 

On the 8th of January, 1 861, he was appointed 
by the authorities of Alabama a Commissioner 
to invite Maryland to co-operate in the secession 
movement; and on the 19th of the same month 
was appointed, by the Convention of Alabama, 
met to determine the question of the secession 
of the State, a Delegate to the Southern Conven- 
tion, to be held at Montgomery on the first 
Monday of the ensuing month, for the purpose 
of organizing the seceding States into a new 
confederacy, constituting a provisional govern- 
ment, and taking such other steps as might 
appear necessary to make secession a fixed fact, 
and which, meeting pursuant to call, and acting 
in the double character of a Constitutional Con- 
vention and a Provisional Congress, brought 
about in so long time the organization of the 
government under a permanent constitution. 

In August, 1 86 1, he was elected a delegate 
from the Fourth Congressional District of Ala- 
bama to the first permanent Congress of the 
Confederate States at Richmond, whither the 
seat of government had been transferred in con- 
sequence of the vital importance of the military 
struggle pending in Northern Virginia. In that 
body he was made Chairman of the Committee 
on Commerce, and, in the absence of the Speaker, 
elected Speaker pro tempore ; but, perhaps, his 
most noteworthy service was the production of 
the address to the people of the Confederate 
States, signed by every member of the Congress, 
and deserving to rank with the ablest documents 
of revolutionary times. His civil services to the 
Confederate cause, begun at the beginning of 
the secession movement and continued uninter- 
ruptedly through the formative stages of the 
government up to its complete and definitive 
organization, ended with the first permanent 
Congress, on the adjournment of which he 
joined the army of General Joseph E. Johnston, 
then at Dalton, Ga., and served in various 
capacities (for several months as Colonel of the 
Fifth Alabama Cavalry) to the close of the war, 
surrendering on parole, May 13th, 1865. Soon 
after the close of the war, yielding to the urgent 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



289 



solicitation of friends, he entered the Christian 
ministry, not, however, without grave misgivings 
on his own part, in deference to which he has 
uniformly declined to accept the pastorate of 
any church, though many flattering calls have 
been extended to him. He preaches, neverthe- 
less, whenever and wherever occasion calls for 
his ministrations, and the throngs that gather to 
hear him attest his power as a pulpit orator. Of 
his eminent fitness for the ministry, so far, at 
least, as he has thought fit to assume its func- 
tions, there is and can be only one opinion. A 
man of deep and fervent piety, he has been a 
professor of religion from his early manhood, 
and has worn his religion as the harness of his 
faculties, working by it and through it in public 
as in private life. While a member of Congress 
at Washington and at Richmond, he was an 
active supporter of religious enterprises, teach- 
ing and addressing Sunday-schools, and mani- 
festing in every proper way his interest in the 
spiritual as well as in the temporal welfare of his 
fellow-men. It cannot be doubted that such a 
man, endowed, besides, with the divine gift of 
eloquence, has a clear vocation to the ministry 
in some form. 

In the fall of 1865 he was chosen President 
of Howard College, Alabama, and in 1868 Pro- 
fessor of English Literature in Richmond Col- 
lege, Virginia. The latter position he still holds, 
as also the chair of Philosophy in the same in- 
stitution, with the Lectureship of Constitutional 
Law. As a professor he is punctual, painstak- 
ing and thorough, intent not on exhibiting his 
own mastery of the theme, but on imparting it 
to his students, an aim which he accomplishes 
with such ease and attractiveness as to verify the 
lines in Comus : 

"How charming is divine philosophy! 
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute." 

Since the war he has returned to the political 
arena but once, when he spoke, and spoke with 
his accustomed eloquence and effect, against the 
adoption of the Radical Constitution proposed 
to the people of Alabama. During his residence 
19 



in Virginia he has exerted a marked influence in 
the State by his numerous speeches, lectures and 
addresses on educational, literary and religious 
subjects, among which may be particularized his 
efforts on behalf of the restoration and increase 
of the endowment of Richmond College, and 
his great speech before the Evangelical Alliance, 
contending for the complete separation of church 
and State, and achieving the honor of republica- 
tion and distribution in England by the Dis- 
establishment party. He has also delivered the 
annual addresses before the Lynchburg and the 
State Agricultural Societies. In 1868 he re- 
ceived from Mercer University, Georgia, the 
degree of LL.D., and, in 1872, from the Ro- 
chester (New York) University, that of D. D. 
He has made two visits to Europe, extending 
one of them to Egypt and Palestine. In addi- 
tion to his other literary work, he has written 
quite freely for newspapers and magazines, and 
enjoys the enviable distinction of having made 
more addresses on the subject of education than 
any other man in the State. It is hardly neces- 
sary to add that he is a warm friend of the pub- 
lic school system, now happily established in 
Virginia, thanks in part to his enlightened and 
persevering efforts. 

He has been twice married : first, to a daugh- 
ter of Chancellor Bowie, of Alabama ; and, 
secondly, to a daughter of James Thomas, Jr., 
of Richmond, Va., one of the leading tobacco- 
nists of the State. 



REV. ALDERT SMEDES, D. D. 

North Carolina. 

EV. ALDERT SMEDES, D. D., the 
founder of St. Mary's School, Raleigh, 
N. C, held its rectorship for thirty-six 
years, dropping the reins of government 
not till the very day before his sudden 
and lamented death. Singularly endowed, both 
in the faculties and qualities of his heart and 
mind, and also in voice, mien and person, with 
natural gifts fitting him for his work, he was 
further qualified for it by the desirable moulding 



290 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



influences of refined social culture, education at 
the most famous seats of American learning, a 
professional training for the law as well as for 
the ministry, extensive foreign and domestic 
travel, and varied pastoral experience. Yet into 
the career upon which he entered in his thirty- 
second year as the rector of a Church school for 
girls, and for which his remarkable aptitude was 
evinced by his great, immediate and uninter- 
rupted success, he was guided by providential 
leadings rather than his own choice. A 
bronchial ailment, which disqualified him during 
several years for public ministerial duty, was the 
immediate occasion of his resigning the rector- 
ship of a church in New York, and his coming 
to North Carolina to establish St. Mary's 
School. His admirable fitness, however, for the 
calling, to which he thus devoted himself, was at 
once seen. Unfailing cheerfulness, wit and 
humor perennially overflowing, fatherly affec- 
tionateness of spirit and manner, quick sympathy 
with another's joy or grief, a heart and hand ever 
open for melting charity, a lofty yet gracious 
courtesy of carriage towards all, with marked 
deference and chivalrous grace of address towards 
women, competent knowledge of men and affairs, 
first-rate executive ability, great force and flu- 
ency of extempore speech, a burning and quench- 
less zeal in his holy calling — who, that knew the 
late rector of St. Mary's, will not bear witness 
that these were his salient gifts and traits? Who 
can wonder that his scholars all loved him, that 
his name became a "household word" in a 
thousand Southern homes, and that the Church 
in all the region from Virginia to Texas, for 
whose daughters he labored that they might be 
"as corner-stones polished after the similitude of 
a palace," mourns his loss and embalms his 
memory ? 

Dr. Smedes was born on the 20th of April, 
1810, in the city of New York, where for many 
years his father, the late Abraham Kiersted 
Smedes, was a merchant. The family name of 
his venerable mother, Eliza Sebor Smedes, who 
is still living, was Isaacs. He pursued his 
academic and professional studies at Columbia 
College, New York, Transylvania University, 



Ky., and the General Theological Seminary of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, New York. 
He married Sarah Pierce, daughter of the late 
Rev. Thomas Lyell, D. D., rector of Christ 
Church, N. Y., and granddaughter of the Rev. 
Abraham Beach, D. D. , who was one of the assist- 
ant ministers of Trinity Church, New York, in 
the early part of this century. Before accepting 
the rectorship of St. Mary's School, Raleigh, 
N. C, Dr. Smedes had been for several years 
assistant minister of Christ Church, New York 
city, and afterwards rector of St. George's 
Church, Schenectady, N. Y. He died in 
Raleigh, N. C, on the 25th of April, 1877. 
His remains are interred in Oakwood cemetery, 
near that city. His wife and six of his children 
survive him. 



HON. CHARLES ESTES. 

Georgia. 

HARLE3 ESTES was born February 2d, 
1819, at Cape Vincent, Jefferson county, 
N. Y. , and is the son of Andrew Estes, 
merchant, of that place, who was one of 
the veterans of the war of 181 2. The 
Estes family is of Prussian descent, and emigrated 
to this country, settling in Mohawk Valley, 
N. Y. He received a common school educa- 
tion in his native State, and in 1830 went to 
Lockport, N. Y., where he acquired a thorough 
knowledge of the watchmaker's and jeweller's 
trade. In 1838 he became superintendent of a 
section of the Genesee Valley Canal during its 
construction. It was there that he obtained 
that practical acquaintance with canaling which 
served him in such good stead during the con- 
struction of the Augusta Canal under his aus- 
pices. After this he engaged as a salesman in the 
Niagara Manufacturing Company, a cotton mill 
in Lockport, N. Y., and leaving there in 1842 
he moved to New York city, where he obtained 
an engagement as salesman in the well-known 
wholesale dry goods house of Doremus, Suydam 
& Nixon. Having gained a complete insight 
into the dry goods trade, he removed to Augusta, 
in October, 1843, and established himself in that 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



291 



business in connection with John M. Dow. 
After three years the firm of Dow & Estes was 
dissolved, and Mr. Estes went into the grocery 
trade, and finally retired from active business 
pursuits in 1866. Up to this time he had taken 
no active part in public affairs, but in this year 
he was elected a member of the City Council of 
Augusta, and was appointed Chairman of the 
Finance Committee and member of the Canal 
Board. In December, 1870, he was elected 
Mayor, and continued in that office by re-elec- 
tion annually for six successive years, during 
which time the enlargement of the Augusta 
Canal to its present dimensions was inaugurated 
and practically completed. The old Augusta 
Canal was projected by a few public-spirited 
citizens of the city of Augusta, prominent among 
whom may be mentioned the late Colonel A. A. 
Cumming, the late W. M. D'Antignac, and the 
Hon. John P. King. These gentlemen, with six 
others, were elected by the City Council of 
Augusta a Board of Commissioners for the pur- 
pose of constructing a canal from a point on the 
Savannah river, about seven miles above, to the 
city of Augusta, for manufacturing purposes, and 
for the better securing an abundant supply of 
water to the city. The work was commenced in 
1845 an d completed in the early part of 1847. 
The dimensions were forty feet surface width, 
twenty feet bottom, and five feet deep, affording a 
total mechanical effect of about 600 horse-powers. 
It soon became evident that the canal was too 
small to supply the demand for power and the 
increasing demand for fire, domestic and other 
purposes consequent upon the growth of the city. 
Temporary expedients were devised and carried 
into effect from time- to time in order to increase 
the supply, and after the banks of the canal had 
been raised so as to furnish seven feet depth of 
water, its ultimate capacity was reached, and yet 
the quantity furnished was entirely inadequate to 
supply the demand. Its enlargement was stren- 
uously advocated by several influential gentle- 
men, among whom was Mr. Estes, and the expen- 
diture necessary for the purpose was estimated 
at $400,000. A direct appeal was made to the 
taxpayers on the question, and the vote for the 



enlargement carried by a large majority. Mr. 
Estes, from his previous practical acquaintance 
with canaling, was urged to undertake the per- 
sonal superintendence of the works, and in March, 
1872, they were commenced, the mayor with 
characteristic energy giving his whole mind to the 
task of carrying out the design. The estimated 
amount, as is frequently the case, was found to 
be altogether inadequate for the satisfactory 
completion of the design, but, knowing the end 
he had in view, no obstacles deterred him, and 
in the face of persistent opposition and much 
undeserved censure he pushed the works on vig- 
orously to completion. At the latter end of 
1876 the canal was finished, its dimensions and 
capacity being as follows : length of main canal 
or first level, seven miles, and including second 
and third levels, nine miles. Minimum water 
way, 150 feet at surface, 106 feet at bottom and 
eleven feet deep, making an area of cross-section 
of 1,408 square feet. The bulk-head, locks, 
dam and other structures are composed of stone 
masonry formed of granite rock, laid in hydrau- 
lic cement mortar, and are of the most sub- 
stantial character. The area of openings for the 
supply of the canal amounts to 1,463 square feet, 
and the entire waters of the Savannah river are 
made available for maintaining the supply. 
There are about 275 acres of reservoirs exclusive 
of the canal proper and the pond above the 
bulk-head and dam. There is a bottom grade or 
descent in the main canal of one one-hundredth 
of a foot in 100 feet, giving a theoretical mean 
velocity of 2-?$$ feet per second or a mechanical 
effect under' the minimum fall between the first 
and third levels, or between the first level. and 
the Savannah river below Rae's creek, of upwards 
of 14,000 horse-powers, not including the avail- 
able supply from the surface of the reservoirs. 
Of this immense power but 2,200 horse-powers 
are at present contracted for, of which the 
Augusta Factory takes 1,000 horse-powers, the 
Enterprise Manufacturing Company 350, and 
others in smaller proportions. The canal is 
owned by the city of Augusta, together with a con- 
siderable tract of land on either side for mill sites. 
The Augusta canal cost, including the lands 



292 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



purchased by Mr. Estes for mill sites and stone- 
quarries, $822,000. On the land, formerly the 
site of the Confederate powder mills, was a 
large quantity of brick, and not less than a 
million were used by the city at a time when the 
price of brick was very high, and this sum should 
be taken into consideration when estimating the 
actual cost of this valuable undertaking. This 
site has since been sold to the Cumming Manufac- 
turing Company, for $14,000, and with this and 
the large sum which should by right be credited 
on account of the brick used by the city, the 
full amount ($42,000) of the purchased land 
has already been returned, leaving a number of 
large and valuable sites still available, which 
when sold will yield a handsome profit, and 
prove how judicious were the investments made 
through the foresight of Mr. Estes. Mr. Estes 
is now President of the Augusta Land Company, 
which was formed for the purpose of purchasing, 
improving and selling lands immediately west of 
the city of Augusta. 

Mr. Estes is a gentleman of strong convictions, 
with great assiduity and tenacity of purpose. 
His election, against strong opposition, for six 
successive years to the mayoral chair is the best 
evidence of the high estimation in which he is 
held by his fellow-citizens, while his sound com- 
mon sense, strict integrity, and excellent busi- 
ness talents have won him the confidence and 
esteem of a large circle of friends. 



BISHOP WHITTLE. 

Virginia. 

IGHT REV. FRANCIS McNIECE 
WHITTLE, D. D., LL. D., the pres- 
ent Diocesan of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church in the State of Virginia, was 
born in the county of Mecklenburg, 
Virginia, in July, 1823. He was admitted to 
the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the month of June, 1847, and was ordained by- 
Bishop Meade. His first charge was St. John's 
Church, Kanawha, now Charleston, the present 
capital of the State of West Virginia. In the 



year 1850 he was in charge of North Farnham 
Parish, in Goochland county, Va. In 1853 he 
was rector of Grace Church, Berryville, in Clarke 
county, Virginia, where he remained until 1S57, 
when he accepted a call to the rectorship of 
St. Paul's Church, Louisville, Ky. This is one 
of the most important churches in the South. 
In 1S67 he was elected Assistant Bishop of the 
Diocese of Virginia, by the Council which met 
in the month of May, in the city of Staunton. 
Many of the bishops and standing committees 
of the United States refused their assent to this 
election upon the ground that Bishop Johns, 
the then Diocesan of the Church in Virginia, was 
not disabled. A majority, however, gave con- 
sent, and he was consecrated to the Episcopate 
in St. Paul's Church, at Alexandria, on the 30th 
of April, 1868. 

Bishop Whittle was assistant to Bishop Johns 
until the 5th of April, 1876, when that vener- 
able Diocesan, who was so dearly loved in Vir- 
ginia, died. Since that time Bishop Whittle has 
had sole charge of the Diocese of Virginia. 

He is a man of great ability as a preacher. 
As an administrator of the affairs of his charge, 
he has shown both wisdom and courage. He is 
one of the class that has very little regard for 
honors or distinctions, but tries with unswerving 
fidelity to meet every responsibility. As a loyal 
Episcopalian, he stands upon the prayer-book 
and resists, with uncompromising firmness, every 
departure from that standard and every innova- 
tion that tends to carry the church from the 
paths of true Protestantism. Married to Emily 
Cary Fairfax, May 10th, 1S48. 



GOVERNOR VANCE. 

North Carolina. 
EBULON B. VANCE was born in 




Buncombe county, N. C, May 13th, 

1830. His father, David Vance, was a 

man of high character and intelligence 

and an estimable citizen. His grandfather, 

Colonel David Vance, was a revolutionary hero, 

and fought and was wounded at King's Moun- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



293 



tain, and afterwards became Clerk of the Supe- 
rior Court of Buncombe, where he died in 1812. 
He had no superior in the discharge of his duty or 
in the integrity and piety of his character. Gov- 
ernor Vance's uncle, Robert Vance, was at one 
time a member of Congress from the Mountain 
District, and a man of rare promise and popular- 
ity, and fell in a duekwith the Hon. Samuel P. 
Carson. On the maternal side he was grandson 
of Zebulon Baird, one of the best citizens of Bun- 
combe county, honored and respected, and for 
many years a member of the General Assembly. 
Governor Vance is a self-made man and owes 
his position to his own talents and industry. In 
1 85 1 he became a student at the University, 
where he remained only one year, and on his 
return obtained a license to practise law and 
was elected Solicitor for his county. A politi- 
cian by nature, in 1S54 he became a candidate 
for the House of Commons, as it was then called, 
and was elected as representative for his native 
county, and served one term in the Legislature. 
In 1855 he was associated with Colonel John 
D. Hyman in the conduct of the leading Whig 
paper in that section — the Asheville Spectator. 
In 1856 he was a candidate for the State Senate 
against Colonel David Coleman and was de- 
feated. In 1858 General Clingman, then a 
representative in the United States Congress 
from the Mountain District, was appointed by 
Governor Bragg to fill an unexpired term in the 
United States Senate caused by the resignation 
of the Hon. Asa Biggs, who had been appointed 
Judge of the United States Court for North 
Carolina. Colonel David Coleman and W. W. 
Avery, of Burke, both Democrats, became can- 
didates to fill the unexpired term caused by 
General Clingman's resignation. As soon as 
the contest became sufficiently warm, Vance 
came forward as a Whig candidate. Coleman 
withdrew, but it was too late, and Vance was 
elected, overcoming a majority of 2,500 and 
turning it into a majority of 2,000 the other 
way. In 1859 he was a candidate for re-elec- 
tion for the next full regular term, and, having 
firmly established himself in the affections of 



the people of the district, was able to defeat his 
old opponent, Colonel Coleman, one of the best, 
purest, ablest, and most popular men that ever 
lived in the mountains. He served in Congress 
until March, 1861, where his course was emi- 
nently conservative. He labored hard to stay 
the tide of Northern fanaticism, and carefully 
refrained from language calculated to increase 
sectional feeling, but sought rather to allay it. 
While a candidate for re-election in 1861 the 
ordinance of secession was passed by the con- 
vention on May 20th. Preparations for war 
were already on foot, and Vance was no laggard 
and responded at once to the very first call to 
arms. He had not favored the secession move- 
ment, but he was a true North Carolinian and 
ready to obey at all hazards the behests of his 
native State. Before the end of May, on the 
very day the ordinance of secession was passed, 
he was Captain Vance and had his company in 
camp at Raleigh. The call of President Lin- 
coln upon North Carolina for troops to make 
war upon her sister States had been sufficient 
for him. His company was one of those that 
formed the Fourteenth regiment, which was first 
commanded by that gallant soldier, General 
Junius Daniel. Captain Vance served with his 
regiment in Virginia until late in the fall, when 
he was elected Colonel of the Twenty-sixth regi- 
ment, in command of which he fought at the 
battle of Newbern and in the fights around 
Richmond. In August, 1S62, he was elected 
Governor, and, having resigned his colonelcy, 
was inaugurated on the 8th of September under 
a special ordinance of the convention fixing the 
date of the beginning of his term of office. In 
1864 he was re-elected Governor of the State, 
his inauguration taking place January 1st, 1865. 
His vigorous, earnest efforts for the successful 
prosecution of the war are matters of history. 
In April, 1865, he left Raleigh with General 
Joseph E. Johnston's army for Greensboro, and 
from thence to Charlotte, where he joined Presi- 
dent Davis. From Charlotte he went to States- 
ville, in Iredell county, to which place he had 
previously removed his family for safety and 



294 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



refuge. There he remained until some time in 
May, 1865, when he was arrested and carried to 
Washington and imprisoned in the old Capitol, 
where he was confined for many months. Mrs. 
Vance having fallen very ill, Governor Holden, 
at the solicitation of Governor Vance's friends, 
and in tardy recognition of the protection ex- 
tended to him when the raid was made by the 
Confederate troops on his printing office in 
Raleigh, wrote to President Johnson in his be- 
half, and he was permitted to return home on 
parole and was finally released. Towards the 
close of the year Governor Vance removed to 
Charlotte and resumed the practice of the law. 
Of course during the war of reconstruction, as 
it may well be termed, it was impossible for 
Zebulon B. Vance to be an idle spectator. Al- 
though a banned man, he took an active part 
in every stage of the struggle, ever maintaining 
and upholding the rights of the people of North 
Carolina. In every section of the State his 
voice was heard exhorting the people to cour- 
age, patience, and hope. Finally, in 1870, 
when honest men once more controlled the Leg- 
islature, it was thought the time had come to 
make an adequate reward for such long and 
faithful service in the field, the camp, and the 
council chamber. Accordingly, on November 
29th, 1870, he was elected by the Legislature 
United States Senator to succeed General Ab- 
bott. The Federal Senate,, after delusive hopes 
held out by its members, refused to remove his 
disabilities, and on the 2d of January, 1872, 
his resignation was sent to the Senate of North 
Carolina. Thereupon General Matt. W. Ran- 
som was elected in his place, and was enabled 
by personal appeals to Senators to secure the 
passing of a bill removing his disabilities. Dur- 
ing the campaign that followed Governor Vance 
took an active and distinguished part, canvassing 
both the eastern and western portions of the 
State. Everywhere he went he was received 
with the most cordial and enthusiastic wel- 
come. 

His disabilities being now removed, the eyes 
of the great mass of the people were turned to 



him as the man to fill the vacancy caused by the 
expiration of John Pool's term in the United 
States Senate, but their expectations were not 
fulfilled. In the Senatorial contest of 1872 
Vance was the regular nominee of the Conserva- 
tive party, but he was defeated by the combina- 
tion of certain gentlemen with the Republican 
party who disliked him because of his effective 
labors against them. The dissension in the 
party was universally regretted, and great sym- 
pathy was shown for him in his defeat. As the 
campaign of 1876 drew nigh there was a unani- 
mous wish that Vance should take the leader- 
ship, and when the Convention met there was 
but one opinion from the mountains to the sea- 
shore. The people had determined to make 
such an effort as they had never made before to 
redeem the State, and in that supreme effort 
wanted no leader but Vance. Never before in 
the history of North Carolina was there such a 
campaign. From one end of the State to the 
other, and in every portion to which he went, 
it was one grand triumphal procession. Such 
an uprising of the people of all classes and con- 
ditions was never before witnessed, and on the 
1st of January, 1877, Zebulon B. Vance, for the 
third time, took the oath as Governor of North 
Carolina, and was reinducted into the office 
from which he had been driven by the Federal 
bayonets to make room for W. W. Holden ; and 
with the retirement of Governor Brogden and 
his associates the curtain fell upon the last scene 
of the great reconstruction drama. 

Governor Vance was bred to the bar, and 
what time he has not been engaged in public 
affairs he has pursued the legal profession with 
diligence and success. But he has never given 
the full energies of his mind to the study of the 
law, nor his time to its practice; hence, he has 
never attained that degree of eminence as a law- 
yer which is within the easy reach of his power- 
ful, acute intellect. His main distinction at the 
bar lies in his powers as a jury lawyer, where 
his gifts as a speaker, and his clear insight into 
human nature may come into play. When he 
first came to the law, while attending court in- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



295 



one of the Western counties, an admiring coun- 
tryman watched him closely in the management 
of his cases, and, comparing him with the rest 
of the lawyers, said : " If that young Vance can 
jist git past the Judge, he beats 'em all." No 
more accurate definition in brief can be given 
of Governor Vance's merits as a lawyer. It is 
only as an advocate that he stands high in his 
profession. The dry and perplexing intricacies 
of legal lore are not to his taste. Governor 
Vance is noted for his executive ability. Cour- 
ageous, firm, quick to perceive and to decide, 
bold and swift in his movements,, full of tact, 
and possessed of untiring energies of mind and 
body, he is peculiarly fitted to govern and con- 
trol men. His record as a war Governor must 
give him enduring fame. He conducted the 
State through those terrible years with singular 
skill and success. No State contributed more 
to the support of the Confederacy than North 
Carolina. The troops in the field and the help- 
less people left at home were better cared for 
than those of any other Southern State. As a 
war Governor he takes rank with Governor Cur- 
tin, Governor Morton, and Governor Randolph. 
To show the North Carolinians' appreciation of 
his executive ability it is enough to say that he 
has been three times elected Governor of the 
State. 

Governor Vance is a true Statesman. He is 
thoroughly versed in the arts of government, 
and is deservedly eminent for his political abili- 
ties. His published speeches and papers on 
political topics reveal a remarkable breadth of 
view and keen philosophical insight into matters 
pertaining to the government of the country. 
He is a firm believer in the wisdom and integ- 
rity of the masses, particularly the agricultural 
classes, who are the chief depositaries of conser- 
vatism and the foundation on which our repub- 
lican institutions must rest if they would be 
permanent. His good sense, liberality, benevo- 
lence of disposition, and true statesmanship have 
been strikingly manifested in his treatment of 
the race question since his recent elevation to 
the chief magistracy of the State. The first 
year of his administration has witnessed the 



complete pacification of the races ; and it is fast 
being demonstrated that, under the line of policy 
being pursued by him, the colored people will 
become an element of strength and conserva- 
tism to the State, while at the same time Anglo- 
Saxon supremacy may be maintained without 
disturbance of the public peace, and without the 
faintest shadow of injustice, oppression, or wrong 
to the inferior race. 

Governor Vance is a great popular leader. 
He seems to have been born to be such, and 
possesses all the qualifications necessary to con- 
stitute such a character. It is no exaggeration 
to say that he is idolized by the people of North 
Carolina, and it is safe to say that no man ever 
lived in the State who possessed more unbounded 
popularity than he possesses at this day. Though 
yet in the prime of life he has served once in the 
Legislature, twice in the Congress of the United 
States, thrice as Governor, and has been once 
elected to the United States Senate by the Gen- 
eral Assembly, and was chosen a second time to 
a seat in that body by the Democratic caucus, 
an honor which was snatched from him by a 
combination of a few bolting Democrats and the 
Republicans. He has for years borne the title 
of "North Carolina's favorite son," the name 
of " Zeb Vance" being a household word 
throughout the State. His great popularity is 
due to his enthusiastic love for his native State ; 
his devotion to the true interests of the people ; 
his well-known sympathy with the masses; his 
unsullied, unswerving patriotism at all times and 
all circumstances, in times of war as in times of 
peace, in the dark days as well as in the bright ; 
his frankness, sincerity, and genial manners; 
his kindly temperament and native goodness of 
heart ; his freedom from the haughtiness, vanity, 
self-conceit, and stiff-neckedness which mars the 
character of so many public men ; and lastly, his 
inimitable, irrepressible humor. Vance's jokes 
constitute the main staple of current wit in 
North Carolina. His fund of anecdote seems 
inexhaustible, and he is indeed "a fellow of 
infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," rendering 
him one of the most agreeable, entertaining, and 
fascinating of companions. 



296 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



As an orator, Governor Vance ranks high, 
higher perhaps than any other individual in 
North Carolina, if not in the whole South. His 
style of oratory is peculiarly his own, full of 
originality and freshness, abounding in flashes 
of wit, keen satire, the drollest of^drolleries, all 
worked upon a basis of genuine eloquence and 
massive logic, illuminated by splendid imagery. 
There is no false glitter, nor ostentation, nor 
unprofitable employment of metaphor in his 
speeches. It may be said of his style as of 
Henry Clay's, "Whenever it leaves the deep, 
bold track of logical accuracy, and rises to the 
lighter elements of the imagination, it is feeling 
alone which bears it upward — the poetry of pas- 
sion." His wonderful adaptability to his audi- 
ence, his quick wit and never-failing readiness 
in debate are among his chief characteristics as 
an orator. His talents are always at command ; 
he is never thrown off his guard when engaged 
in an intellectual struggle ; and with his deep, 
clear, commanding voice he possesses the almost 
magical power of controlling the feelings of his 
auditors. He is certainly the greatest popular 
orator North Carolina ever produced. In the 
lecture field he has achieved much distinction — 
his lecture on the "Scattered Nation" is one 
of the finest and most attractive ever delivered 
in any part of this country. 

As an orator, statesman, patriot, executive 
officer, Governor Vance has already achieved a 
proud and durable fame which but few can hope 
to rival and none surpass. He married in Au- 
gust, 1863, Miss Harriet Newell Espy, daughter 
of the Rev. Thomas Espy, a Presbyterian cler- 
gyman from Allegheny county, Pa., who came 
to North Carolina in 1828 and married Miss 
Louisa Tate, of Burke county, N. C, and died' 
in 1830. He has four sons : the eldest, Charles 
N. Vance, is an officer in the Commercial 
National Bank, at Columbia, S. C. ; David M. 
Vance was for a long period his father's private 
secretary, but was compelled to retire from ill 
health ; Zebulon B. Vance is a cadet at the Naval 
Academy, Annapolis, Md. ; and the fourth son 
is a student at Bingham's preparatory school, 
about fifty miles from Raleigh. 




HON. GEORGE N. STEWART. 

Alabama. 

GEORGE NOBLE STEWART, attorney- 
at-law in the city of Mobile, is believed 
to be the oldest lawyer of the State of 
Alabama, not in age, but in date of 
" admission to the bar and practice and on 
the roll of attorneys, having been admitted to the 
practice in the Circuit Court of Marengo county 
in the year 1821, has continued in active practice 
ever since, and is now still so engaged. Mr. Stew- 
art has just completed the eightieth year of his 
age, and isstill in full health and possession of all 
his faculties. He now occupies the position of 
consulting counsel of the Mobile and Ohio Rail- 
road Company, and is also the attorney, in 
Alabama, of the New Orleans, Mobile and Texas 
Railroad Company. In general practice he is 
associated with Harry Pillaus, a junior member 
of the bar, of noted legal ability. 

Mr. Stewart was the only child of Noble Cald- 
well Stewart, who was engaged in the mercan- 
tile 'maritime service, as captain sailing out of 
New York. Captain Stewart came to America 
at a very early age from Londonderry, Ireland, 
where he was born. He served in the navy of 
the United States as an apprentice under the 
care and friendship of Commodore Truxton. 
After engaging in the mercantile service, he 
married in Cadiz, Spain, Helena Counsell, the 
daughter of Peter Counsell, a native of London 
residing there. The said Helena, having been 
sent to London for her education, returned to 
Cadiz, where her father died, and having mar- 
ried Captain Stewart they removed to New 
York with her mother and a sister. Captain 
Stewart died young in New York. George N., 
his son, was born on the 26th of July, 1799. 
The family was then residing in Philadelphia, 
but there being that summer a violent yellow 
fever epidemic in that city, they temporarily 
left for the country, so that he was in fact born 
in Burlington, New Jersey, but was on their 
return in October christened in Philadelphia. 

The education of Mr. Stewart was principally 
under the tuition of Captain Talbot Hamilton, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



297 



an old English gentleman of noble family and 
finished education, and a man of fine attain- 
ments. He had a select school of pupils who 
were very much attached to him. This was not 
for want, for he was a man of ample means, 
but said every one should have some employ- 
ment, and he therefore thus occupied himself. 
His school-room was filled with paintings of the 
best masters, with many very costly pieces, and 
also there was a fine library. Mr. Hamilton had 
been a captain in the British navy, and com- 
manded a frigate in the battle of the Nile. He 
was lame from a wound. Having killed a 
superior officer of the navy in a duel, he was 
compelled to leave the service and his country, 
and thus it was he came to America. 

At a very early age Mr. Stewart was engaged 
in the study of chemistry and geology under Dr. 
Gerard Troost, an eminent chemist and miner- 
alogist, who was distinguished as such before 
coming to Philadelphia. He was born at The 
Hague, Holland, and was a member of various 
scientific societies in Holland, France -and 
America. He carried on a large chemical lab- 
oratory in Philadelphia in connection with Mr. 
P. G. Lechleitner, consul of Holland, and Mr. 
Stewart was engaged in said laboratory as a 
student under Dr. Troost, of whom he was a 
great favorite. Dr. Troost died some years 
since as State Geologist of Tennessee at Nash- 
ville. During the war with England the busi- 
ness of the laboratory was very profitable ; after 
the peace the case, was different. 

In 1812, at the suggestion of Dr. Troost, a 
meeting of six or seven persons occurred at the 
drug-store of Speakman & Say, at the corner of 
Market and Second streets in Philadelphia. It 
was proposed to establish a scientific society, 
and there originated the society from so small a 
beginning which is now in such a flourishing 
condition, then proposed and named "The 
Academy of Natural Sciences." Mr. Stewart, 
then a boy, was present at that meeting as 
student of Dr. Troost. The society was formed 
and grew. Dr. Troost was made its first Presi- 
dent, and he delivered lectures before it at 
which Mr. Stewart was his young assistant in the 



demonstration of chemical experiments. A 
short time since it has occurred to Mr. Stewart 
that possibly his name might be found in the 
records of said society, not as a member, because 
he was not then thirteen years old, but in some 
manner. He therefore made the inquiry, and in 
reply he received a letter from Mr. Ruschen- 
berger, the Secretary of the society, in which he 
says: "Under date of April 18th, 1812, I find 
that a visit to Perkiomen to examine the lead 
mine there was proposed to be made .by a com- 
mittee. Mr. Gordon (a professor and lecturer 
on mineralogy) was to be there. Dr. Parman- 
tier requested leave to introduce a pupil, Master 
George Stewart, for the journey. " Master Stew- 
art did, in fact, accompany that committee of 
exploration of the lead mines, of the zinc, mine, 
and also of the soap-stone quarry in the neigh- 
borhood. Mr. Stewart is probably the only 
person now living connected with the founding 
of that renowned society, as he was then so 
much younger than the members. 

About the time above named, Mr. Stewart 
recollects that in the lectures of Dr. Troost, on 
the mineral resources of Pennsylvania, one sub- 
ject was the existence in that State of springs of 
petroleum and naphtha. It became the subject 
of conversation between Dr. Troost and Mr* 
Bollman, the intimate friend of Mr. Humboldt, 
and it was agreed that a dozen of bottles of each 
of those mineral curiosities should be sent by Dr. 
Troost to a scientific society at Amsterdam, which 
was done, and Mr. Stewart recollects putting up 
and boxing the said samples of this mineral oil 
which were sent as agreed. This was probably 
the first time when this oil product, now grown 
into such great proportions, was brought into 
public notice. 

After the war with England, the chemical lab- 
oratory above named ceased operations. Young 
Mr. Stewart became then a clerk in the large 
drug establishment of the celebrated and since 
distinguished" Dr. Samuel Jackson — who, with 
his mother, under the name of Samuel and 
Susan Jackson, carried on a very extensive 
wholesale and retail drug business — and he con- 
tinued there for some time. 



298 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In 1816, when a large number of the most dis- 
tinguished military men of the age were banished 
from France, many of them being in Philadel- 
phia, the consideration of some means of pro- 
viding for them came up, and it was proposed 
that Congress should be applied to for a grant 
of public land in the territory newly acquired 
from the Indians in the South, for their benefit, 
to enable them to settle there as a colony. Con- 
gress did accordingly on application pass an act 
on the 3d of March, 181 7, for that purpose. But 
it was not what was expected by any means, and 
proved no means of substantial relief to men 
without means, without agricultural experience 
to settle new lands in a wild state, without any 
title to the land until paid for. It was nothing 
more than a sale to them of four townships of 
public land at the customary price of two dollars 
per acre, requiring the grantees to perform con- 
ditions of settlement and planting vineyards, 
etc. , which they could not possibly perform. The 
grant was passed under the name of "An act to 
encourage the cultivation of the vine and olive." 
The association was however organized, and the 
lands divided into a large number of allotments 
of from eighty to 480 acres each, and the land 
was selected in the vicinity of Demopolis, in 
Marengo and Greene counties. A commission 
had been organized to select the location for the 
settlement, and Mr. Stewart — though then still 
under age, who had much mixed in French 
society, and was fully conversant with French 
customs and language, and who had become 
acquainted with many of those French officers — 
connected himself with the said association, was 
appointed secretary of the exploring committee 
and accompanied it, to locate the lands, intend- 
ing to settle on the grant, and was allowed a 
share in the lands. It was thus that he became 
a resident of Alabama in the year 181 7, and a 
resident of Demopolis, the projected town of 
the colony, which then was in the Mississippi 
Territory : the Alabama Territory not having 
then even been organized. The Choctaw In- 
dians then still held the land on the west side of 
the Tombigbee river, opposite Demopolis. 

Among those French emigrants, there were 



many men whose names are distinguished in his- 
tory. The list comprised Marshal Grouchy ; Gen- 
eral Le Febvre Desnouettes, who was the com- 
mander of the cavalry of the celebrated Imperial 
Guard of France, the officer who was embraced 
by Napoleon, as representative of his army, on 
his making his adieu to his troops, in Paris, on 
his resignation, and the friend who rode with 
him in his carriage on his retreat from Moscow, 
and whose wife was a cousin of the Emperor. 
Also General Charles L'Allemand, commander 
of the artillery of the Imperial Guard ; General 
Clausel, who commanded the city of Bordeaux, 
and who in after days became Governor of Al- 
geria; General Charles L'Allemand; Colonel 
Raoul, who commanded the advanced guard of 
two hundred men when Napoleon reached 
Grenoble, on his return from Elba, and when 
met there by Marshal Ney and bared his breast 
to his troops, and many other names known to 
fame. Some of these officers came to the 
French grant, but the greater part did not, 
as it presented no available object to them to 
do so. 

Among those who came was General Le Fe- 
bvre Desnouettes, above named, one of the most 
sprightly, gallant, and perhaps the handsomest 
officer of the French army. He established a 
plantation on the Warrior river. Mr. Stewart 
mentions a ride with this amiable officer, on 
ponies, in the Choctaw Nation, when both were 
on a visit to Mr. George S. Gaines, at the Choc- 
taw Factory, near where Gainesville is now lo- 
cated, and says that during this ride the general, 
in a cheerful and pleasant manner, commented 
on the change of circumstances, which occurred 
at times in life, as matters really of romance, 
saying: "Who could have imagined that I, at 
the head of my proud command, following the 
conqueror of Europe, should be found at this 
day in the regions of romance described by 
Chateaubriand, in the wild country of Choctas, 
in his attala — and yet such is the fact." This 
gallant officer was permitted to return to France 
under the Bourbon reign, through the interces- 
sion of Mr. La Fitte, the great Paris banker, 
who was the brother of his wife, but was lost on 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



his voyage there in the unfortunate wreck of the 
"Albion," on Kinsale Point. 

After some residence at Demopolis Mr. Stew- 
art was induced to undertake the study of law 
by the Hon. Abner S. Lipscomb, one of the 
judges of the Supreme and Circuit Courts of 
Alabama, who had settled near Demopolis, and 
he did so, under the tutorship of his said friend, 
Judge Lipscomb. Before leaving Philadelphia 
it had been proposed that Mr. Stewart should 
study law there, and accordingly an arrange- 
ment was made for him to do so with Mr. Joseph 
R. Ingersoll, one of the ablest lawyers of the 
day, and he went into his office. But being 
quite young, and of an active temperament, the 
office, surrounded with green baize curtains, 
appeared to him to be a too gloomy place to be 
confined in, and he abandoned the idea. The 
original intention to study law, however, ap- 
peared more enticing at this later period. He 
was admitted to the Bar in the year 1821, as 
before stated. 

Mr. Stewart was called on soon after he was 
admitted to carry on a controversy in relation 
to the lands of the French grant. The public 
lands were not surveyed by the United States 
when the act of Congress was passed, and some 
time elapsed before the surveys were made. In 
the meantime, the location having been made 
where the lands were of good quality, a number 
of settlers were found to have taken possession 
of the best pieces, where good springs were 
found and choice locations, expecting to become 
purchasers by pre-emption ; and when the loca- 
tion of the shareholders was completed, they 
refused to deliver up the possession to the French 
grantees. Efforts were made, and some suits in- 
stituted, to obtain possession, but failed. Mr. 
Stewart then commenced a suit in Greene county 
against one of the settlers, by an action of eject- 
ment, as a test case. On account of the influ- 
ence of the settlers the trial was removed, by 
change of venue, to Tuscaloosa, where it was 
stiffly litigated, and ended by a verdict in favor 
of the French grantee. The case was removed, 
by writ of error, to the Supreme Court of Ala- 



bama, and came for hearing at the January term, 
1824. At that time -Mr. Stewart had not been 
admitted to the practice in the Supreme Court. 
The Hon. C. C. Clay was then the chief-justice 
of the court, and he resigned his office ; he was 
thereupon immediately employed by the settler 
in aid of his former counsel to procure a reversal 
of the judgment. Being desirous to go home, 
he proposed to Mr. Stewart to submit the cause 
to the court on written arguments, which was 
most acceptable to Mr. Stewart, as he could not 
then appear in person. He therefore wrote an 
argument in the case, appending to it the name 
of a copartner of his who was licensed in that 
court, but not present. The court affirmed the 
judgment which had been appealed from, and 
directed Mr. Stewart to substitute his own name 
to the argument and file it, and to apply at once 
to the court for a license and admission to the 
Bar of the Supreme Court. He was at that time 
the only attorney ever admitted without a full 
examination in open court. The case is reported 
in "Minor's Reports,' page 331, under the name 
of St. Guirons vs. White, and the reporter, 
Judge Minor, complimented Mr. Stewart by 
publishing this argument at full length, occupy- 
ing nine pages, the only case in the book to 
which such space was allotted. This argument 
on the law of ejectment, made at that early day, 
Mr. Stewart has felt the benefit of subsequently 
as a land lawyer. He was also admitted to 
practice in the States of Mississippi and Ken- 
tucky, and in the Supreme Court of the United 
States in the year 1854, on the motion of the 
late Caleb Cushing, then Attorney-General of 
the United States. 

On the 16th of March, 1826, Mr. Stewart 
married, at Areola, Marengo county, Miss 
Marie Pauline David, the daughter of General 
Henry David, an officer of the French army. 
Her father accompanied Jerome Bonaparte, on 
his visit to Philadelphia, as one of his staff offi- 
cers, then going to St. Domingo. Mr. Francis 
Breuil, a merchant of Philadelphia, was at the 
time the agent of the French Republic, and en- 
tertained Jerome Napoleon and his staff at his 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



country-seat, near the city, when General David 
made the acquaintance of Miss Adele De Sevre, 
the daughter of Mrs. Breuil, and married her 
about the same time that Jerome Bonaparte 
married Miss Patterson, at Baltimore. General 
David took his wife to France, where Mrs. 
Stewart was born, at Bordeaux, and after his 
death, she, when a child, with her mother, re- 
turned to Philadelphia. The widow David 
afterwards married Mr. Frederick Ravesies, a 
leading French merchant in Philadelphia, who 
came to Alabama and settled a cotton planta- 
tion in Marengo county, in the French grant, 
being the principal settler on * that grant, 
where Mr. Stewart married his step-daughter, 
Miss David, then residing with him and her 
mother. 

In 1827 Mr. Stewart removed to Tuscaloosa, 
and continued the practice of law in partnership 
with Mr. Seth Barton, afterwards Ambassador 
to Chili. He was there appointed Reporter of 
the Supreme Court, and published, in 1830, the 
first volume of " Stewart's Reports," which was 
followed by his second and third volumes. 
Having resigned, he turned over his notes to 
Benjamin F. Porter, who- published the four 
volumes of "Stewart and Porter's Reports," but 
which last were exclusively edited by Mr. Porter. 
"While at Tuscaloosa Mr. Stewart served as a 
Director of the State Bank, and was during one 
year Mayor of the city. In 1835 Mr. Stewart 
removed to Mobile, where he has since resided, 
and was generally employed in the many land 
controversies then existing there, arising under 
the former British, French and Spanish land 
grants, then much unsettled and litigated, his 
knowledge of the French and Spanish languages 
being of much advantage to him. He was the 
attorney of the celebrated Joshua Kennedy, who 
held grants and patents covering almost the 
whole area of the city of Mobile. 

Mr. Stewart occasionally took part in politi- 
cal matters as a member of the Whig party, 
making speeches and on occasion presiding at 
meetings. But he never had much taste for 
politics, preferring to devote his attention to 



his profession. He did, however, serve a term 
of four years in the Legislature of Alabama, as 
Senator from Mobile. During this senatorial 
term he took a very active part in supporting 
the object of the mission of Miss Dix, which was 
to establish the Lunatic Asylum at Tuscaloosa, 
and as Chairman of the committee on that sub- 
ject reported the bill which was passed. He 
was a delegate to the'first great convention held 
at Memphis to urge Congress to cause a connec- 
tion by railroad with the Pacific ocean, at which 
convention the late Matthew Maury presided, 
and who urged the measure as an absolute mili- 
tary necessity. He afterwards was a delegate 
to the large convention held at St. Louis for the 
purpose of removing the capital of the United 
States to that city; was the first Vice-President 
of that convention, and presided over it during 
a portion of its sitting. He was also a delegate 
to the convention afterwards held on the same 
subject at Cincinnati, and was appointed the 
President of that convention. At this latter 
convention it was determined that further action 
should be then postponed until after the next 
census of the United States, now about to be 
made, when the preponderance of the represen- 
tation of the West would be so great that the 
object could be, as it was believed, easily accom- 
plished, the manifestation of opinion then being 
that the removal should and would be carried 
into effect. 

Mr. Stewart has a son and daughter living, 
the latter married with Mr. Thomas W. Sims, a 
cotton factor of Mobile. His oldest son, Fred- 
erick G. Stewart, was killed in battle, in defence 
of Richmond, in the desperate and fatal charge 
of Malvern Hill — a member of the company of 
cadets of Mobile, in the First Regiment of Ala- 
bama Volunteers. 

Mr. Stewart is now devoting his whole atten- 
tion to the practice of his profession, having 
been, as it may be said, identified with the law 
system in his State, as he grew up with it 
from its commencement, and is now in a re- 
markable state of preservation as to health and 
activity. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




HON. W. R. COX. 

North Carolina. 

ILLIAM RUFFIN COX was born, March 
nth, 1 83 1, in Scotland Neck, Halifax 
county, N. C. His family is of English 
extraction, his paternal grandfather, 
baptized in Old St. Paul's Cathedral, 
London, having belonged to the English navy, 
though afterwards, during the Revolutionary 
war, he was in the American merchant service, 
in which he was captured by the British. His 
father, Thomas Cox, was a native of Chowan 
county, N. C, and a prominent merchant, 
having been a partner in the firm of Devereux, 
Clark & Cox, of Plymouth, N. C, and in that 
of Maitland & Cox, of Philadelphia, houses 
larrely engaged in exporting to the West Indies, 
owning the vessels employed in their trade; he 
was also a member of the Senate of North Caro- 
lina, from Washington county, and a leading 
advocate of the first railroad in the State. Mrs. 
Ceneral John H. Winder, of Baltimore, it may 
be added, is a sister of his father. His mother, 
whose maiden name was Olivia Northfleet, was 
a daughter of Marmaduke Northfleet, a well- 
known planter in the eastern portion of the 
State, and a sister of Mrs. Weldon N. Edwards, 
of Warren county. 

In 1825 his father moved to Halifax, N. C, 
where he died in 1836, after which his mother 
removed to Nashville, Tenn., to join an elder 
sister. He was a student at the Vine Hill Aca 
demy, in his native county. Near Nashville he was 
prepared for and in 1846 entered Franklin Col- 
lege, from which he graduated with distinction in 
1850. . Choosing the law for his profession, he 
attended the Lebanon (Tenn.) Law School, at 
which he graduated in 1852, having as precep- 
tors Judges Green, Carruthers and Ridley, and 
as fellow-students General Bate, who came 
within one vote of defeating Andrew Johnson 
for the United States Senate, in 1874, Judge 
McHenry and Judge East, both of whom have 
been members of the Supreme Court of 
Tennessee. 

Going to the Nashville Bar, he formed an ad- 



vantageous partnership with the Hon. John G. 
Ferguson, an experienced and accomplished 
lawyer, with whom he continued to practise 
during his residence in the State. He returned 
to North Carolina in 1857, but relinquished the 
practice of his profession to engage in cotton 
planting, settling in Edgecombe count] . In 
1859 he removed to Raleigh, and in the follow- 
ing year was nominated by the Democrats as a 
candidate for the House of Commons, on the 
ticket with E. G. Haywood and Henry Morde- 
cai, opposing the Hon. Sion H. Rogers, the 
Hon. Kemp P. Battle, and J. P. H. Russ, who, 
after a spirited contest, were elected by a small 
majority. While reared in the school of State 
Rights, however, he was opposed to the war until 
war became inevitable, when he promptly em- 
braced the cause of his State and her Southern 
sisters. Having contributed to the equipment 
of an artillery company, he was employed in 
recruiting a company of infantry, when Gov- 
ernor Ellis tendered him a commission as Major 
of the Second Regiment of North Carolina 
troops, of which the gallant C. C. Tew was 
Colonel, Judge W. P. Bynum Lieutenant-Col- 
onel, Judge Faircloth Quartermaster, and Judge 
Hilliard Commissary. On the death of his 
Colonel at Sharpsburg (Antietam), he became 
Lieutenant-Colonel, following the promotion of 
Lieutenant-Colonel Bynum, and, on the resig- 
nation of the colonelcy by that gentleman for 
the purpose of accepting the office of solicitor, 
to which he had been elected after the battle 
of Fredericksburg, came into full command of 
the regiment, at the head of which, and of the 
brigade, which he commanded later, he par- 
ticipated in the various battles of Stonewall 
Jackson's corps. In the battle of Chancellors- 
ville, he was shot down, being wounded in three 
places, and leaving half of his men killed or 
wounded on the field. Disabled by his wounds, 
he could not follow General Lee's army to 
Gettysburg, but on its way back from Pennsyl- 
vania rejoined it, finding that, in the meantime, 
he had been recommended by his superior 
officers for promotion, and being, in fact, pro- 
moted shortly afterwards to the rank of Brig- 



3 02 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



adier-General. After the battle of Spottsyl- 
vania Court-House, he was placed in command 
of Ramseur's brigade, composed of the Second, 
Fourth, Fourteenth and Thirtieth Regiments, 
with parts of the First and Third of Stuart's 
brigade, and attached to General E well's corps, 
a position which he held to the close of the war, 
the celebrated brigade maintaining its full 
prestige under his leadership. In the battle of 
the 1 2th of May, at the close of a gallant charge, 
he had the honor to receive on the field, with 
the other officers of the brigade, the thanks of 
General Lee. His brigade, on the death of 
General Jackson, served with General Ewell, 
Jackson's successor, until it was detached from 
the Army of Northern Virginia, and made what 
is known as the Valley campaign, participating 
in numerous battles with varied success, under 
Generals Early and Gordon, but always against 
overwhelming numbers. Returning from this 
campaign, he joined General Lee in front of 
Richmond, where he again had the good fortune 
to win the acknowledgments of that noble chief- 
tain, lighting his sad heart with a gleam of sun- 
shine even amid the fast-gathering clouds of 
overwhelming disaster. The incident has been 
well told by Governor Vance in a public ad- 
dress, and may be fitly given here in his 
words . 

"During the retreat from Petersburg," says 
the Governor, "to that memorable spot which 
witnessed the final scenes of that once splendid 
Army of Northern Virginia, when everything 
was in the utmost confusion, the soldiers strag- 
gling hopelessly along, thousands deliberately 
leaving for their homes, and the demoralization 
increasing every moment, and the flushed and 
swarming enemy pressing them closely, a stand 
was made to save the trains upon which all 
depended. Some artillery was placed in posi- 
tion, and General Lee, sitting his horse on a 
commanding knoll, sent his staff to rally the 
stragglers, mixed in hopeless, inextricable con- 
fusion, behind a certain line, when presently an 
orderly column comes in view, a small but 
entire brigade, its commander at its head, and 
files promptly along its appointed position. A 



smile of momentary joy passed over the dis- 
tressed features of the General as he calls out to 
an aid, ' What troops are those? ' ' Cox's North 
Carolina brigade,' was the reply. Then it was 
that, taking off his hat, and bowing his head 
with goodly courtesy and kindly feeling, he said, 
'God bless gallant old North Carolina.'" It 
was in accordance with the fitness of things that 
the brigade whose gallantry drew forth this invo- 
cation should have made, as it did make, the 
last charge in the last battle at Appomattox, its 
commander still at its head. Unfortunately the 
written testimony borne by his superior officers 
to the valor and efficiency of his brigade was 
destroyed amidst the general confusion and dis- 
order that prevailed at the close of the war, but 
its deeds are imprinted in the hearts of those 
with whom it served, and will not grow dim 
while they live. As for himself, his deeds are in 
part recorded on his person, which bears the 
marks of no less than eleven wounds received in 
battle. When the war ended, he resumed the 
practice of his profession at Raleigh, and not 
long afterwards was elected President of the 
Chatham railroad. 

In the early days of reconstruction, most 
of his friends being banned, he kept aloof 
from politics ; but at the first election under 
the constitution adopted in 186S, he con- 
sented to stand for the office of Solicitor of the 
Metropolitan district, though without any expec- 
tation that he would be elected, as the district 
was Republican by about four thousand majority. 
Nevertheless, he was elected by twenty-seven ma- 
jority, holding the office for six years, and 
justifying by the ability and fidelity with which 
he performed its duties alike the choice of his 
friends and the trust of his opponents. 

In i S 73 he was made Chairman of the State Edu- 
cational Association, which position he held dur- 
ing that year and the two following ones, being 
instrumental, as Chairman of the Executive Com- 
mittee, in establishing the Norlh Carolina Journal 
of Education, a monthly devoted principally to 
the cause of common-school education, and 
having on its list of contributors the first literary 
talent of the State. Established at a critical 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3°3 



time in the history of public education in North 
Carolina, this periodical, it can hardly be 
doubted, exerted a decisive influence in favor of 
the cause. His services in this relation afford 
not the least of his many titles to the grateful 
esteem of the people. On the 20th of May, 
1875, tne one hundredth anniversary of the 
Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was 
celebrated at Charlotte, N. C, in the presence 
of some forty thousand people, whom he ad- 
dressed in a speech remarkable for the broad and 
lofty patriotism that pervaded it, and in which 
he thus described the spirit and requirements of 
the people of North Carolina, who, in this 
respect, may be said to have represented the 
people of all the other States of the South : 
" North Carolina has always been attached to 
the principles upon which the government is 
founded. But give her the rights guaranteed 
her by law, secure her local self-government 
and liberty, and she will be found as true and 
loyal as any in the most favored portions of the 
country. We have no war to make upon the 
government, but will hold up to merited con- 
demnation any party which through corrupt 
and partisan ends may seek to array section 
against section." 

On the occasion of a banquet given at 
the Tarboro' House, Raleigh, in honor of the 
second annual meeting of the Cotton States 
Congress, held in that city in July, 1875, ne 
presided, and welcomed the guests, declaring 
with emphasis that the true purposes of such 
conventions were the development of the re- 
sources of the States, and the promotion of the 
welfare of the citizens by a national and compre- 
hensive policy. He, indeed, lost no fit oppor- 
tunity to reinforce the national sentiments of 
the people. 

When the chairmanship of the Democratic 
State Executive Committee became vacant 
by the death of the Hon. D. M. Barringer, 
he was elected to that office, which he filled 
with marked vigor and ability, contributing 
largely by his rare powers of organization, 
and unsleeping vigilance, and scarcely less by 
his personal character and acknowledged patriot- 



ism, to the success of his party in the campaign 
of 1S76. His name, at this period, was brought 
forward by the people of his district in connec- 
tion with the nomination for the governorship 
of the State, but he declined to compete for the 
honor. He was chosen a Delegate from the 
State at large to the Democratic National Con- 
vention at St. Louis, in 1876, as he had been 
chosen a Delegate from the State at large to the 
convention which nominated Seymour and Blair 
in 1868, thoughhedeclined to attend the St. Louis 
Convention. On the 31st of January, 1877, he 
was appointed by Governor Vance Judge of the 
Sixth Judicial District of North Carolina, com- 
prising the central portion of the State, an office 
which he now holds, and for which he is singu- 
larly fitted by the quality and habits of his 
mind, by his intellectual culture, his unswerving 
integrity, and the dignity and urbanity of his 
deportment. Short as is the time which he has 
sat on the bench, he has delivered at least one 
decision of more than local interest, which was 
contrary to the rulings of two of his associates 
on the Superior Court bench, and on appeal to 
the Supreme Court of the State was sustained in 
terms peculiarly complimentary to his judicial 
aptitudes. The case referred to was that of 
the State vs. J. F. Hoskins and others, in which 
he decided that the act of Congress whereon the 
Federal courts base their claim to remove to the 
Circuit Court of the United States for exam- 
ination the cases of revenue officers charged 
with criminal offences by the State, unconsti- 
tutional.' This decision, as intimated above, 
the Supreme Court affirmed, declaring, by 
consequence, that when a defendant, in any 
indictment for assault and battery, made affidavit 
that he was a revenue officer of the United 
States, and that the alleged offence was done 
under color of his office, the judge in the court 
below committed no error in ordering further 
proceedings in his court to be stayed until that 
matter was inquired of. The preparation of the 
opinion of the court on the appeal was assigned 
to Chief-Justice Pearson, but on account of his 
protracted indisposition, he was unable to under- 
go the labor, and the opinion was prepared by 



3°4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



"fudge Reade, who said, among other things : 
"We think his Honor, Judge Cox, was both 
prudent and wise, and that his decision was 
right;" adding, "Every man assents to the 
proposition that the United States has no 
jurisdiction to try offences against the State 
by her citizens, or in any manner to interfere 
in the police regulations of the State. In 
these matters the State is sovereign and supreme. 
The fallacy consists in supposing that the mat- 
ter in hand has anything to do with the State 
or the State with it." But his judicial cares do 
not absorb all his time, as his professional cares 
did not, since he is now, as he has been for 
many years, deeply engaged in cotton-planting, 
employing a large number of hands continu- 
ously on his plantations. In fact he has always 
taken much interest in agriculture in general, in 
the advancement of which he has borne an influ- 
ential part, having been often a member of the 
Executive Committee of the State Agricultural 
Society, and frequently delivered addresses be- 
fore that society and others of like character. 
Nor has he wholly passed over financial affairs, 
as is evidenced by the fact, among others, 
that he is a Director of the National Bank of 
Raleigh. In addition to his prominence in so 
many spheres of secular activity, he is a zealous 
churchman, being a member and vestryman of 
Christ Church, Raleigh, a regular attendant at 
the Diocesan Conventions, and a joint trustee 
with Judge Battle and Bishop Atkinson over the 
property of the diocese. 

Judge Cox holds a position in the hearts of 
the people of North Carolina that might be 
coveted by any man ; he has been intimately 
connected with her history for some nineteen 
years, and has in that time worked zealously to 
advance her interests. He is popular with men 
of all shades of opinion, and if in the future the 
people of North Carolina shall demand his ser- 
vices for the highest position in their gift, the 
honor and reputation of the State will be safe in 
his hands. He married, in 1857, Miss P. B. 
Battle, daughter of James S. Battle, planter and 
manufacturer, of Edgecombe county, and sister 
of the Hon. W. S. Battle, Tarboro, N. C. 




CAPTAIN W. L. BRAGG. 

Alabama. 

ALTER LAWRENCE BRAGG was born, 
February 25th, 1835, in Lowndes coun* 
ty, Ala., and is the eldest son of New- 
Y$ P ort and Martna w - Bragg. The Bragg 
family is of English descent, and the 
earliest account that we have of it is of Norman 
origin. A member of the family was Speaker 
of the English House of Commons during the 
administration of the younger Pitt. Three bro- 
thers of this family came to this country with 
Sir Christopher Newport about the middle of 
the seventeenth century, and settled, one in 
Virginia, another in North Carolina, and a third 
in Maryland. From the North Carolina branch 
were descended General Braxton Bragg, who 
commanded the Confederate armies at Pensa- 
cola, and at the battles of Shiloh, Perryville, 
Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Mission Ridge; 
Hon. Thomas Bragg, Governor of North Caro- 
lina; Judge John Bragg, for twelve years Judge 
of the Circuit Court, Alabama, and member of 
the United States Congress ; and Captain Wil- 
liam Bragg, who died in the Confederate ser- 
vice. General Edward S. Bragg, of Wisconsin, is 
also a member of this family. From the Vir- 
ginia branch was descended Peter Bragg, the 
grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who 
was a native of Fauquier county, Va. ; he was 
seventeen years of age when the Revolutionary 
war broke out, and enlisted in the army and 
fought under Greene at Hobkirk's Hill and 
Guildford Court-House. At the close of the 
war he settled in South Carolina, where his son, 
Newport, the father of Walter L. Bragg, was 
born. Newport Bragg married Martha W. 
Crooke, a daughter of James Crooke, a wealthy 
planter of South Carolina. Mrs. Newport Bragg 
was connected by marriage with the well-known 
South Carolina families of Moore and Barry. 
Governor Andrew Barry Moore, Governor of 
Alabama from 1857 to 1S61, was her double 
cousin, and Hon. William Barry, of Kentucky, 
at one time Postmaster-General of the United 
States, was a relative of Mrs. Bragg. 






/ 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3°5 



In 1S29 the family moved into Lowndes coun- 
ty, Ala., where Walter L. Bragg was born, and 
in the fall of 1843 they removed to Ouachita 
county, Ark., where they continued to reside 
until the spring of 1861. Newport Bragg was 
an educated planter, a prominent citizen distin- 
guished for personal integrity and uprightness 
of life ; for hospitality which charmed and de- 
lighted all who came within the range of its 
influence ; for devotion to English literature, 
and fondness for hunting and fishing, whose 
comfortable home was the much-sought resort 
of friends and neighbors, and especially young 
people. It was a favorite saying with him : 
" You may show me the genius of all other au- 
thors, and the power and beauty of all other 
languages, and I will show you where they are 
all surpassed by the great writers and orators of 
England." He was a philosopher and philan- 
thropist in the broad sense of the words, and 
was noted for his kindness, liberality and indul- 
gence of his children and servants. He died on 
the 7th of March, 1855, i n tne fifty-fifth year of 
his age, leaving a widow and seven children, all 
of whom are living. That widow is now seventy- 
one years of age, and through life has been a 
woman of remarkable intellectual gifts ; highly 
cultivated by extensive reading of standard au- 
thors, an humble Christian, but with a force of 
will like fate itself. Had it not been for her 
pious influence and resolute spirit, which admit- 
ted of no trifling, the spoiled and indulged boy, 
whose every wish was gratified by the over- 
fondness of his father, might have accomplished 
but little in life. Judge Scott, one of the most 
distinguished of the Supreme Court Judges of 
Arkansas, who was a strong friend of the family, 
and neighbor, used to say of her: "She is the 
only woman I ever saw whose excellent judg- 
ment and imperious spirit when roused reminds 
me of General Andrew Jackson." Yet she was 
very domestic, devoted to her husband and 
children, and universally beloved and respected 
by all her acquaintance. In a comparative wil- 
derness, which has since blossomed as the rose, 
she gathered her young children about her, and 
tauqht them the rudiments of education, until 



they were well advanced for the schools. More 
than one of her five sons have inherited her in- 
domitable spirit, but it would be an unequal and 
exceptional task of Nature for all the virtues of 
such an extraordinary mother to be transmitted 
to any of her progeny. Of her seven children, 
two are daughters and five are sons. Mrs. Vir- 
ginia C. Cleaver, the eldest daughter, is the 
widow of Captain William H. Cleaver, who was 
killed in 1861 while in the Confederate army on 
an expedition against New Mexico ; Florence 
M. Bragg, the younger, is unmarried ; and both 
are living with their mother at the old family 
homestead three miles west of Camden, Ark. 
Dr. Junius N. Bragg and Dr. John M. Bragg 
are practising medicine in Camden, Ark. ; An- 
thon V. Bragg and Albert P. Bragg are farming 
in the neighborhood of Camden. The remain- 
ing and eldest son, Walter L. Bragg, after re- 
ceiving the benefits of a liberal education, 
entered the Law School of Harvard University, 
where he studied for three terms, and eventually 
left in consequence of the unpleasant relations 
existing between the students from the two sec- 
tions of the country then on the verge of open 
rupture. While at Harvard, he had for class- 
mates John W. Foster, of Indiana, afterwards 
a Brigadier-General in the Federal army, Ed- 
ward C. Billings, afterwards Judge of the United 
States District Court of New Orleans, and 
George Bliss, since United States District At- 
torney for the Southern District of New York, 
an eminent authority, and author of a work on 
"Life Assurance." He read law with Hon. 
Christopher C. Scott, a distinguished jurist and 
Judge of the Supreme Court of Arkansas, and in 
1856 entered upon the practice of his profession 
at Camden, Ark. In i860 he formed a partner- 
ship with Colonel John R. Fellows, since that 
time Assistant District Attorney of the city of 
New York. In politics he has always been a 
Democrat of the Andrew Jackson school, and 
canvassed and voted for Buchanan for President 
in 1856, and for Breckinridge in i860. He was 
strongly opposed to the tenets and course advo- 
cated by Yancey, Rhett and others for many 
years prior to 1861, but when the crisis came, 



306 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



when South Carolina had seceded, and other 
Southern States were preparing to follow, he fa- 
vored the withdrawal of all the Southern States 
from the Union, and resistance by force of arms 
to the repressive measures then being inaugurated 
by the government of the United States. At 
that time it was customary for political speakers 
in the South to ridicule the courage of the 
Northern people, and to argue that a mere show 
of force would accomplish peaceable secession. 
In a speech delivered by him in February, 1861, 
while counselling resistance and predicting that 
it would be followed by a bloody war, he com- 
bated the views of those who ridiculed the cour- 
age of the North in the following language: 

" The history of the Northern people is the 
hi;tory of a firm, hardy race — unbending as 
their granite hills. Such men were their fathers 
before them. Whether right or wrong, their 
courage has been stubborn and unyielding. 
They were among the first to resist Great Brit- 
ain in the war of Independence. Monmouth 
and Yorktown are historical index-boards which 
point to Northern as well as Southern graves. 
The soil of Canada and Mexico wraps the bones 
of Northern men, who fell fighting under the 
flag of their country. They now number eigh- 
teen millions of inhabitants, and it is folly to 
underrate such a foe, or to suppose that they will 
retreat from the position they occupy without a 
long shock of arms. Why should they do so ? 
They have been gaining ground steadily for ten 
years, and have now elected a President of the 
United States." 

In April, 1861, he enlisted in the Sixth Regi- 
ment of Arkansas Infantry, and under command 
of General Hardee advanced into Eastern Mis- 
souri ; early in the fall of 1861 he passed into 
Kentucky, and during the remainder of the war 
continued an infantry soldier in active service 
in the field, nearly all the time on out-post duty, 
and was with General J. E. Johnston when he 
surrendered at Greensboro, N. C. He partici- 
pated in the battles of Woodsonville, Shiloh, 
the battles around Corinth with Halleck's army, 
Murfreesboro, Liberty Gap, Chickamauga, Mis- 
sionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap, Dug's Gap, 



Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Pumpkin 
Vine Creek, Lost Mountain, Pine Mountain, 
Kennesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, the 
battle of Atlanta on the 2 2d July, 1864, Jones- 
boro, Decatur and Bentonville. During the last 
two years of the war he was most of the time 
in command of the sharp-shooters of General 
Cleburne's division, of which gallant soldier he 
was the intimate personal friend for years. 
Cleburne's division was the most celebrated for 
its fighting qualities in the army of the West, 
and its commander, Major-General Patrick R. 
Cleburne, was one of the most remarkable and 
peculiar men in the whole Confederate service ; 
he was a native of Ballin Colleg, Ireland, and 
the son of a physician. When about seventeen 
years of age he enlisted as a private soldier in 
the Fortieth Regiment of Infantry in the British 
army, was promoted to corporal, but having 
been reduced to the ranks on account of some 
convivial irregularity with some of his comrades, 
he quitted the army and came to America, set- 
tling at Helena, Ark. He practised there some 
time as a lawyer, and on the outbreak of the 
civil war entered the Confederate army as Cap- 
tain of a company. As a lawyer his attainments 
were respectable, but his true element was that 
of a soldier, and from the moment he entered 
the service, his whole career was one scene of 
distinction and glory. He was modest and re- 
tiring, and a man of great integrity and purity 
of character. He mingled but little with his 
men, but such was their confidence in him and 
attachment for him, that his presence at any 
part of the line, under the most terrible fire, was 
every needed reinforcement. At the time he 
fell, at Franklin, he was not then forty years of 
age ; he was never a favorite with the adminis- 
tration at Richmond, and all his promotions 
were due to his superior military ability and 
success ; he was, in fact, the Stonewall Jackson 
of the Western army, and was so estimated by 
his soldiers. His division was a curious com- 
pound, being formed largely of Irish from the 
levees along the Mississippi, and of the young 
men of Texas and Arkansas, with a very small 
percentage of old men — nearly all the officers 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



307 



being quite young. It was exceptionally well- 
drilled, and went through all the vicissitudes of 
battles with very much the same precision as it 
did the evolutions of ordinary drill — such a thing 
as its being thrown into confusion was never 
known. That division was never repulsed, 
and, as Macaulay said of Cromwell's Iron- 
sides, "It came to regard the day of battle 
as the day of certain triumph." It bore 
a leading part in the battle of Murfreesboro, 
and in every other great battle fought by that 
army until General Cleburne was killed at 
Franklin. At Stone river it drove more than 
twice its numbers, onvthe Federal right, from 
successive positions, a distance of four and a 
half miles, capturing many prisoners and several 
pieces of artillery. At Chickamauga, where it 
lost half its numbers in killed and wounded, 
when the Federal army had driven the Con- 
federates back to the ridge immediately over- 
looking Alexander's Bridge, on the evening of 
September 19th, 1863, this division, by forced 
marches, arrived on the field about sundown 
and drove the Federal army a distance of a mile, 
fighting till about nine o'clock at night. As it 
went into that battle General D. H. Hill, com- 
manding the corps, said: "That is Cleburne's 
division, and if it does not move the Federals 
there is no move in them." On the next day 
it stormed breastworks, defended by such divi- 
sions as those of Van Cleve and Negley, justly 
considered two of the finest divisions in the 
Federal army. At Missionary Ridge, on the 
right, this division stood firm and held its 
ground against Sherman's corps, and only with- 
drew after dark, when every other portion of 
the line had been abandoned to the Federals. 
At Ringgold Gap, October 27th, 1863, it first 
ambuscaded about a brigade of Federal infantry 
and then held its position during the remainder 
of the day against four times its numbers, and 
this, too, while the rest of Bragg's army was in 
wild retreat and in an utterly demoralized con- 
dition. On July 22d, 1864, at Atlanta, in the 
battle in which General McPherson fell, Cle- 
burne's division stormed two lines of Federal 
breastworks, and continued the fight till late in 



the night, nearly every field officer in the several 
brigades composing the division being either 
killed or wounded. It was of this division and 
its conduct at the battle of Franklin that the 
Federal authorities, telegraphing the particulars 
of that battle to Washington, said : "The deter- 
mined bravery of the rebels exceeded anything 
ever before seen." 

One of the celebrities of this division was a 
chaplain, a Catholic priest named Carius. He 
was a general favorite, a man of fine education 
and intellectual acquirements, and constitution- 
ally fearless. He frequently rode about the 
skirmish line while hot firing was going on, and 
never went further to the rear than the hospital 
for the wounded on the field during the progress 
of a battle. He had words of cheer for the 
brave soldiers who were going into battle, and 
he stayed close by and administered the comforts 
of holy religion to the wounded and dying who 
were brought off the field. Th* Third and Fifth 
Confederate Regiments in this division were 
composed nearly altogether of Irish Catholics, 
and while the cannon-balls were crushing the 
timber over their heads in the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, Father Carius rode up into the line of 
battle in sight of the Federal works before the 
advance began, and, upon a signal from him, 
the men of these regiments being on their knees, 
he there gave them, in a few words, the bless- 
ings of a church whose missionaries are to be 
found in every part of the habitable globe. To 
the hardy veterans of many battle-fields, who 
stood as spectators in respectful silence, it was a 
strange sight, but it was grand, a scene worthy 
of the painter. In a few moments the bugles 
sounded the advance, and these two regiments 
at their place in line, with the light of battle in 
their faces, and looking more as if they were 
going to a pleasant entertainment than to the 
shock of death, advanced to attack a fortified 
position as strong as that of Meade at Gettys- 
burg, and defended by troops as brave. After 
terrific havoc and carnage that position was 
stormed, and the Fifth Confederate Regiment 
was the first to break through the enemy's line. 
When the courage of an officer or soldier was 



3 o8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



questioned, it was a common saying among the 
men, " Send him to Carius." This good priest 
is still living in New Orleans. 

At the close of the war Mr. Bragg settled in 
Marion, Ala., and resumed the practice of his 
profession, forming a partnership with Napoleon 
and Powhatan Lockett, which continued till the 
death of the former, in 1867. In that year he 
became associated with Pinckney B. Lawson, 
their partnership ending rst January, 1869, from 
which date he was joined by Judge James F. 
Bailey until Mr. Bragg's removal to Montgomery, 
Ala., in April, 1871, determined that partner- 
ship. In April of that year he formed a partner- 
ship with Hon. John T. Morgan, since United 
States Senator, and William S. Thorington, his 
present partner. He had taken but little part 
in public affairs until the year 1870, and up to 
the summer of 1874 had acquired no popular 
distinction in politics, being chiefly known as a 
lawyer who prosecuted the practice of his pro- 
fession in a laborious manner. In the election 
of 1872, although the Democratic and Conserva- 
tive party had able and popular candidates, the 
Republican party had carried the State election 
by nearly ten thousand majority, electing the 
Governor, all the State officers, a majority of 
the Legislature and a United States Senator. 
When the State Convention of the Democratic 
and Conservative party assembled, in July, 1874, 
to nominate candidates upon the eve of what 
was then known to be the most tremendous and 
momentous party contest that had ever occurred 
in the State, by one of those strange fatalkies 
which sometimes occur in public affairs, the 
leading spirits of the party, such as Pettus, Mor- 
gan, Houston, Watts, Pugh, Walker, Lyon, 
Langdon, Elmore, Troy, Brooks, Forney, Boyd, 
Barnes, with others of commanding influence, 
and the masses of the convention, unanimously, 
and as with one accord, without any solicitation 
on his part and even against his wishes, united 
on Mr. Bragg, and selected him as Chairman of 
the State Executive Committee, with unlimited 
powers to manage and conduct the approaching 
canvass. This canvass was so remarkable and 
followed by such extraordinary results, not only 



in Alabama but in the influence it had on other 
Southern States, that it is in itself an era. 

At the time that canvass commenced, the 
Democratic and Conservative party was without 
organization, but within a short period there- 
after there were district committees in every 
district, county committees in every county, 
and beat committees in every beat of the State. 
The walls in the rooms of the State Executive 
Committee were soon covered with county maps 
and handbills of appointments, and, with the 
number of clerks present, the system prevailing, 
and the correspondence carried on, had all the 
appearance of a war office. By inquiry there it 
could be learned how many speeches would be 
made in the different localities of the State on 
any day during the canvass, the names of the 
speakers who would make these speeches, and 
the places at which they would be made ; and on 
the next day, in most instances, it could be as- 
certained at that office what the size of the 
crowd had been at the meetings of the day 
before in various parts of the State. By like 
inquiry at that office it could be ascertained 
what meetings had been held by the Republi- 
can party the previous day, the speakers who 
had addressed the meetings, and the size of the 
crowd present at each meeting. As an evidence 
of the thorough organization and minute atten- 
tion to detail, it may be mentioned that on one 
occasion, during the canvass, meetings were 
held in every district, every county, and every 
beat in the State in one day. The telegraphic 
despatches alone frequently cost $100 a day. 
As it was notorious that most of the postmasters 
and their assistants were active and unscrupulous 
agents of the Republican party, it was found prac- 
tically useless to send Democratic campaign docu- 
ments through the mails with any hope of deliv- 
ery, consequently all Democratic instruction and 
documents were obliged to be sent at great ex- 
pense, by express or private messenger, to insure 
delivery. The canvass was without parallel in 
the party contests of Alabama. It lasted more 
than two months, and such was its system that 
it had abated none of its vigor at its close. It 
was of common occurrence during that canvass 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3°9 



for between three and four hundred speeches a 
day to be made by the speakers of the Demo- 
cratic and Conservative party in different parts 
of the State. A fierce enthusiasm, which burst 
over all bounds, seized upon the masses of that 
party, and women and children went to its 
meetings with the men, and frequently those 
meetings were opened by prayer. In many in- 
stances ministers of the gospel and school teach- 
ers became famous political speakers. For sev- 
eral days before the election it was like a general 
holiday throughout the State; business was to 
a large extent suspended; political bulletins 
were read to crowds about street corners, in 
cities and towns; and in the country masses 
of men rode from one political meeting to 
another. 

The leaders of the Republican party, some of 
whom were able and eloquent men, prosecuted 
their canvass with corresponding effort. The 
mass of their party consisted of ignorant ne- 
groes, and to these they appealed, assuring them 
in the most frantic manner that if the Demo- 
crats carried the election they would be put 
back into slavery, all of which the negroes be- 
lieved, and felt that their only hope to retain 
their freedom was to carry the election. In the 
interest of the Republican party, spies, informers 
and detectives swarmed through the State, and 
some of them even went so far in their efforts to 
manufacture pretexts for Federal and military 
interference that they shot holes in their own 
hats and clothes, and pretended that it had been 
done by Democrats in ambush, as was shown by 
their own evidence in the Congressional inves- 
tigation which followed this' election. Many 
active Democrats were arrested and carried to a 
great distance and bound over before United 
States commissioners to answer imaginary 
charges, which were never prosecuted. United 
States infantry and cavalry were stationed at 
various points in the State and were used by 
spies and informers in making arrests which 
were never prosecuted. But such was the fierce 
spirit and determined resolution of the masses 
of the Democratic and Conservative party that 
all these things, so far from dampening their 



ardor, only made them swarm out in greater 
numbers at political meetings. 

The election that followed was carried by the 
Democrats by a majority of more than thirteen 
thousand votes, and, as subsequent events have 
shown, was the complete and final overthrow of 
the Republican party of Alabama. The victori- 
ous Democracy, emerging from the most heated 
and protracted party contest in the annals of the 
State, smarting under the wrongs, frauds and 
oppressions of carpet-bag and negro rule, and 
feeling that such adversaries were enemies of the 
public welfare, and deserved no quarter, in 
many instances were making contests for county 
and local offices upon legal grounds of a purely 
technical character, without regard to the popu- 
lar vote cast at the election. This circumstance 
called forth the following address from Mr. 
Bragg: 

" The substantial test of every election is the 
fairly expressed will of the people : and neither 
more nor less than this ought to be the desire 
of every good citizen. In an election in which 
so many officers were voted for, we think it not 
improbable that there may have been occasional 
irregularities in the mode of holding the elec- 
tion and of making the returns in some of the 
voting precincts of this State ; and in every such 
instance where there was no fraud, nor actual 
injury to their just rights, we call upon the can- 
didates of our party to abide by the will of the 
people as fairly expressed, and to refrain from 
making contests for offices predicated upon any 
such technical irregularities." 

The immediate effect of this address was to 
put an end to all such contests; and on account 
of its moderation and the spirit of justice which 
pervaded it, the address itself was generally 
copied and commented on favorably by the 
leading journals of each of the great political 
parties in the United States. The New York 
Herald, in referring to it, said: "The Demo- 
crats down in Alabama have one man in their 
party who has some sense." At this election, 
under Republican laws and Republican rule, it 
was no crime for one man to vote an unlimited 
number of times, and such was the excitement 



3io 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



that nothing prevented their doing so but the; 
most rigid vigilance on both sides. It is a re- 
markable coincidence that at this election the 
Republicans cast 94,000 and the Democrats 
107,000 votes, making more than the extreme 
rate of one voter in five of the population. No 
prosecutions or indictments followed on either 
side, a most unusual circumstance, after so ex- 
cited and hotly contested an election. 

At the inauguration of Governor Houston, 
which followed, it was estimated that fully 
30,000 people were present in Montgomery, and 
so great was the crowd that it was almost impos- 
sible to escort the carriages containing the 
Governor, Senator Morgan, Mr. Bragg and 
others to the capitol. 

'The direct fruits of this election were a settle- 
ment of the enormous public debt of Alabama, 
upon which no interest had been paid for sev- 
eral years, and since which settlement interest 
has been paid promptly as it falls due, while the 
large floating debt of the State, which had pre- 
viously been at a discount of twenty-eight cents 
on the dollar, has long since been restored to 
par : a constitutional convention and a new con- 
stitution for Alabama: the enactment of laws 
holding officials to rigid accountability, en- 
forcing the administration of public justice, pro- 
tecting the privilege of the elective franchise 
and punishing frauds against it, and bringing 
about a thorough reform in every branch of the 
State government, general and local. The pub- 
• lie debt of Alabama was at that time about 
$30,000,000 ; the greater portion, which was 
incurred during the reckless and profligate rule 
of the carpet-bag government, has since been 
compromised and the debt reduced to about 
$10,000,000. Under this changed state of af- 
fairs the State has prospered to an extent that 
has been wonderful ; its people have paid their 
debts, and individual thrift, economy and pros- 
perity are everywhere visible. Men of all par- 
ties, races and creeds live together as neighbors 
and friends. 

There was a spirited canvass and election for 
the Constitutional convention, in 1875, ^ ut ^ 
was carried by a majority of between seventeen 



and eighteen thousand votes ; and again for the 
ratification of the new constitution, in the same 
year, but it gave such general satisfaction that it 
was carried by a majority of between fifty-five 
and fifty-six thousand votes. Holding the same 
position in his party as in 1S74, Mr. Bragg man- 
aged the canvass for the Democratic and Con- 
servative party in each of these last two elections. 
General Edmund W. Pettus, of Selma, Ala., one 
of the foremost men in the ranks of the Demo- 
cratic party in Alabama, in writing of these 
campaigns, says : 

"As a citizen, I desire to congratulate and 
thank you for the service you have rendered the 
State, as the captain of our forces, in the three 
campaigns against the enemies of good govern- 
ment. Bold and cautious, daring and discreet, 
there has been the plainest demonstration of the 
' birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon, of winning, 
fettering, moulding, wielding, banding the 
minds of millions, till they move as one. ' I 
know no other man in the State who was able 
to do the work, or who had the will of steel and 
iron frame to undergo the labor." 

Mr. Bragg resigned this position in February, 
1S76, but at the national convention of his 
party, at St. Louis, during the same year, al- 
though not present at the convention nor desir- 
ing the place, was elected a member of the 
National Democratic Executive Committee, and 
in the Presidential canvass of 1S76 made 
speeches in forty different counties of his State 
for the nominees of that convention. In March, 
1877, he resigned his position as a member of 
the National Democratic Executive Committee. 
In the fall of 1876 he was appointed one of the 
Commissioners to settle the city debt of Mont- 
gomery ; the city was then bankrupt, and in the 
spring of 1877 he visited the city of New York 
on this business, and effected negotiations 
which resulted in a settlement of this debt, 
since which the city has been enabled to meet 
its obligations. 

On the 12th of July, 1S76, a beautiful and 
expensive silver service was presented to Mr. 
Bragg, the gift of the people of Alabama, in 
consideration of his public services. The cere- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3" 



mony of presentation occurred at the Arlington 
Club Rooms, in the city of Montgomery. The 
presentation speech was made by Hon. George 
W. Stone, then and now a judge of the Supreme 
Court of Alabama, and for more than twenty 
years one of the most distinguished jurists and 
eminent citizens in the State. Judge Stone 
spoke as follows : 

"Captain Bragg: It has been customary 
through all time, to give some testimonial, to 
erect some memorial commemorative of distin- 
guished services rendered by patriots and phi- 
lanthropists. History, all along its pathway, is 
lightened up by such memorials. They are the 
silent, yet enduring plaudit, which a grateful 
public is wont to bestow for deeds of voluntary, 
yet heroic beneficence. 

"You, sir, have well-earned claims upon us 
which can never be effaced while memory re- 
mains. When our rightful government had been 
wrested from us by an edict, 'more relentless 
than the torch of Omar ; ' when all our high 
places were desecrated by the polluted presence 
of aliens to our instincts and blood ; when the 
manhood of our State had well nigh succumbed 
to the haughty behests of the despoiler, and was 
about to despair of deliverance ; when woman, 
always the keenest sufferer in man's degradation, 
had almost ceased to encourage us to further 
effort — you, sir, stepped to the front, and with 
a bugle-blast that reverberated from the moun- 
tains to the Gulf, you aroused the patriotism and 
purpose of the masses, which had only slumbered, 
and led us to victory. Victory, not by war's 
bloody arbitraments, not by fraud, force or 
intimidation, ' but by the resistless power of 
the ballot — the artillery of popular sovereignty.' 
We stand to-day redeemed and restored to all 
the peace-giving powers of honest home govern- 
ment. We hail you, sir, as the captain-general, 
under whose leadership we have achieved these 
grand results. 

"In the name of the people of Alabama, 
whom you have so well and faithfully served, 
and as a faint testimonial of their gratitude, I 
present you this tea-service and accompanying 
pieces, purchased with means furnished by many 



of your admiring friends. May it prove to be, 
sir, but an instalment of the debt we so justly 
owe you." 

In reply to the above remarks, Captain Bragg 
then made the following speech : 

"Judge Stone: To receive, as I now do, 
this testimonial from a people I love and honor, 
causes me emotion I find it impossible to prop- 
erly express. Such a gift, bestowed under 
such circumstances, can be estimated by no 
pecuniary standard of value. It is a child of 
honor, and honor is without price. As an offer- 
ing of the popular heart, compared in value to 
such an expression as this, bonds and mortgages 
are trash. If it was but a feather, plucked from 
the eagle's wing, and presented to me under 
such circumstances, I should consider it of in- 
estimable value ; not because, when the property 
of its once fiery possessor, it had dwelt above 
the clouds, higher than the lightning's glare 
and the thunder's home, or struggling with 
the winds had outrode the storm; but be- 
cause it was the gift of a great people, indi- 
cating their approval of the humble services 
of a citizen, rendered in their behalf in time 
of trial. 

" The gratification I experience is chiefly due 
to the fact, that the same great people, who 
honor me now, are the people whose confidence 
and sympathy I had in the trying struggle to 
which you have so eloquently alluded. To this 
people belongs the glory of the victory achieved 
in that struggle, and of the reforms since then- 
accomplished in this State. It was this people 
who knew their rights, and knowing, dared 
maintain them ! It was this people who, taking 
counsel from their God and from the wisdom 
of their fathers, stood up in solid phalanx, from 
the Tennessee river to the Gulf, and, in an hour 
of supreme heroism, swept their oppressors from 
power like chaff before the storm ! It was this 
people who, like Cortez of old, burned their 
boats behind them, and then marched forward 
to meet the enemy. The deliverance of this 
State, in that struggle, required an effort of 
sovereign power, and it was this people who did 
that work, and they alone were capable of it. 



312 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



I was but one instrument of their will. They 
had thousands of others. 

"I thank you for your kind allusions to me 
and to my humble public services. I feel that 
the part I performed was more the result of acci- 
dent than otherwise. To this day it has ever 
been a mystery to me why, at that time, my 
name was suggested for Chairman of the State 
Executive Committee of the Democratic and 
Conservative party of Alabama. Conscious of 
my own obscurity, when it was mentioned to 
me that I was desired for this place — a place 
that had been continuously held by men 
amongst the foremost in our State — I felt that I 
had no qualifications for such a place, and I 
did all I could, consistently with propriety and 
a sense of duty to others, to avoid accepting it. 
But a large number of friends, in whom I had 
confidence in other matters, would take no 
denial, and they, aided by my wife (who, 
though a small woman, has a large faculty of 
having her own way sometimes) pressed me into 
that service. I must admit, too, that much as I 
dreaded it, I was also influenced in accepting it, 
by the idea I have long entertained of the duty 
of a citizen to his country. I love ease as much 
as any man, but since attaining my manhood I 
have always felt that I would not be a citizen 
of any country that could not command my ser- 
vices as a citizen for the performance of any 
duty demanded by the country, ' from working 
on a public road with a grubbing hoe ' to carry- 
ing a musket in battle. 

"I have incidentally adverted to a member 
of my family, and it is to me a pleasing feature 
of this beautiful gift you present, that it is one 
which will be appreciated by her, quite as much 
as by me, and I have no doubt she will speedily 
subdue it unto herself. Another gratifying cir- 
cumstance to me, connected with this occasion, 
is that this testimonial is presented by one whose 
voice has never uttered any uncertain sound in 
all matters where the rights of the people were 
involved, and who has never spoken ' in bated 
breath' in the presence of tyrants; one whose 
long, honorable and useful career has made his 
name a household word in Alabama; one who, 



for a long period of time, has worn the judicial 
ermine of the highest court in this State without 
stain or blemish ; and whose decisions, involving 
the lives, the liberties, and the property of his 
fellow-beings in the administration of public 
justice, whether in war or peace, have never 
bent to the right nor to the left to do the will 
of any earthly power, save that of the law itself. 

"With all my heart I thank you, and through 
you, the great people, who have honored me 
with this marked evidence of your and their 
kindness and approval." 

In the summer of 1876 Mr. Bragg was en- 
gaged for the defence in the trial of William A. 
Owen for the murder of Joel E. Matthews. The 
trial took place at Selma, Ala., and lasted from 
June 24th to July 9th, and the case was power- 
fully prosecuted by General Pettus, of Selma. 
Great public interest was excited, and the feeling 
against the prisoner ran very strong. Mr. Bragg 
brought all his resources into the service of his 
client, and, after an unusually protracted and 
exciting trial, secured his acquittal. 

On the death of Hon. John A. Elmore, in 
November, 1878, Mr. Bragg delivered the fol- 
lowing address on the resolutions offered in the 
Chancery Court of Montgomery county : 

" May it Please Your Honor: The custom 
of commemorating the virtues of the dead in 
some manner deemed appropriate is one of the 
most ancient and universal that has ever existed 
among men. The purpose of this custom is not 
to benefit the dead, because it cannot do that, 
but it is to elevate the standard of personal ex- 
cellence among the living, by keeping continu- 
ally before them in the most marked manner 
the influence of lofty examples, and by giving 
the assurance of grateful remembrance after 
death to those who have done good service for 
humanity. No living man, if he be worthy of 
the name, can be insensible to such considera- 
tions. The greatest of men feel them the most 
acutely. At the battle of the Pyramids, when 
Napoleon was exhorting his soldiers to stand 
firm against the advancing Mamelukes, he 
pointed to the monument of Cheops, and said : 
' Soldiers ! From the summit of those pyramids 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



thirty centuries look down upon you ! ' After 
the decks were cleared for action, and Nelson 
was advancing to attack the brave enemies of 
his country, at the battle of the Nile, he said to 
a group of officers who stood upon the deck of 
his ship : ' Between now and this time to-mor- 
row, I will have gained the peerage or a tomb 
in Westminster Abbey ! ' Other familiar exam- 
ples, illustrating the influence of these powerful 
incentives upon human conduct, might be men- 
tioned, but it is not necessary. The saint, the 
martyr, the hero, the statesman, the jurist, and 
every other benefactor of the human race, no 
matter when, where or how, deserve to be made 
fixed pictures in the book of time, around which 
should cluster the just affections of humanity, 
and it is the duty of cotemporaries to arrange 
and adjust these pictures in accordance with 
truth, for the benefit of the present as well as 
future generations. 1 knew long and well the 
illustrious man whose virtues are commemorated 
in the resolutions presented to the court. I en- 
joyed the pleasure of his intimate friendship, 
unmarred by one single unkind thought during 
a long series of years, and while I shall never 
cease to feel the pain occasioned by his loss, so 
long as my own life lasts, and never expect to 
look upon his like again in all respects, yet it is 
some consolation to me now, as I know it is also 
to my brethren, for us to feel that we have had 
the opportunity to know and love such a man. 
For my part, I am almost afraid to trust myself 
to speak of him, although I feel it to be my duty 
that I should do so. This man was an intel- 
lectual giant. His natural endowments were 
prodigious. His mind was colossal, and yet in 
the practice of his profession — the law — it was 
so bright and discriminating that he rarely over- 
looked the smallest details of a case. Accuracy 
was, with him, a great distinguishing character- 
istic. All that associate counsel desired to 
know was that he had prepared the pleadings in 
any case, no matter how complicated or difficult ; 
and that was sufficient. But his mind shone out 
most grandly in discussing questions of consti- 
tutional and statutory law; and in this branch 
of jurisprudence it is no disparagement to any of 



his able and distinguished brethren to say, that 
he was without an equal in this State. When 
subjected to the critical tests applied by his au- 
gust and imperious mind, adjudicated cases in 
the law books, which had long stood as unques- 
tioned authorities, frequently became mere paper 
trash. His learning was great and thorough, 
but his mental resources were so much greater 
than any learning which can usually be obtained 
out of law books for the discussion of the facts 
of any particular case arising in practice, and 
his logic was so severe and correct that he cared 
but little for authorities whether for or against 
him when their reasoning was unsatisfactory to 
the dictates of his own judgment. He walked 
in the light of truth, taking principle for his 
guide, and unswayed by the petty advantages 
and undaunted by the difficulties afforded by 
shadows — a monarch in the warfare of logic. 
As an equity lawyer, his powers were vast and 
wonderful. If he had lived in England, the 
greatest of nations, I have no doubt he would 
have been made Lord Chancellor by the time 
he was fifty years of age. It has been a source 
of general regret with his profession that he never 
held the office of a Supreme Court Judge in this 
State, and this feeling is founded upon the con- 
ceded fact that he was able, learned and pure 
enough to have read opinions from the same 
bench with Mansfield, Marshall and Taney. 
It is well known that he once declined this great 
office when formally tendered to him. If he had 
accepted it, the public would have been greatly 
benefited, and an imperishable lustre would 
have been thrown around the name of the State. 
But the time never was when his love for the 
people of this State was any less than his great 
ability to serve them, and at different times in 
his long and eventful career he did serve them 
in a public capacity. In the early history of this 
State he commanded a company of infantry in 
the Indian war. The man who voluntarily takes 
his life in his hand, and goes forth to defend his 
country against its enemies without any of the 
allurements of high command, in order that his 
people may enjoy the blessings of peace and pro- 
tection, walks in the highway of political holi- 



3H 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ness and shows what his love for that people is ; 
and the man who fails to do this in such an 
emergency, without an excuse so complete in it- 
self as to exclude every conclusion against him, 
demonstrates his selfish indifference to the public 
welfare, and his unfitness to have a place in the 
affections of his people. Afterwards our de- 
parted brother was a Senator in the Legislature 
of Alabama, from the county of Lowndes. 
When the State of Alabama seceded from the 
Federal Union, bravely following the fortunes 
of his people, and standing with them in the 
hour of dire trial, he was a commissioner from 
this State to the State of South Carolina. Sub- 
sequently he was a member of the Constitutional 
Convention of Alabama in the year 1865. He 
was always faithful to every public trust, and 
discharged its duties with consummate ability. 
He was not a politician, and had no fondness for 
party strife, although he was at all times a man 
of decided convictions, and never hesitated to 
express them ; but on great occasions he laid 
aside that reserve which arose more from the 
natural modesty of the man than from any other 
cause. During the great political canvass of 
1S74 in this State, he made several speeches 
which were pronounced by those who heard 
them magnificent specimens of unanswerable ar- 
gument. But the just fame of John A. Elmore 
depends upon the borrowed light of no office he 
ever held. He was greater than all the offices 
he ever held, and greater than any office he 
could have held within the gift of the people of 
this State. In all that makes the man, he was 
one of the highest types of his race. None like 
him is left. If you want to see his like, you 
must look among former generations. He was 
the soul of honor. He was cast in as heroic a 
mould as Hotspur himself. His love of right — 
his high sense of personal propriety — his fidelity 
to truth without regard to consequences — his 
known courage — all combined to make him an 
oracle in all matters where the honor of men was 
involved ; and numerous are the instances in 
which his decision has prevented the shedding 
of human blood. He was a man of fine social 
qualities, yet at the same time he was always, 



and on all occasions, a person of great dignity 
of character. He was a man who had all the 
ready elements of character, intellect, firmness, 
fortitude and courage to have fitted him to sit in 
a Roman Senate, and aided in devising measures 
for the public safety when a Carthaginian army, 
flushed with victory, was hovering in sight of the 
Eternal City, or to have stood without trembling 
in any dangerous crisis of fate. But the magni- 
tude of his heart was as ample as the scope of his 
mind. It was full of tender love for his family 
and friends. When sympathy arose and asserted 
its "sway in that great heart, it came swelling 
forth like the billows of the sea. Intellect is a 
grand attribute, so is honor and courage and 
dignity and fortitude ; but there are times when 
every man should have a heart ; and give me the 
man who at such times has a heart ! Our vener- 
able brother died as he lived — a wise and good 
man, and a philosopher. For long and weary 
months he stood face to face with certain death; 
and his sufferings were intense. He knew that 
it was only a question of time, and a brief period 
at that, and that there was no earthly hope for 
his recovery ; yet he bore all his sufferings with 
uncomplaining fortitude, and at the end of them 
all, drew the drapery of his couch about him, 
and died as heroes die. No stately monument 
nor sounding epitaph is necessary to preserve the 
memory of this man from the ravages of oblivion. 
The spot where his noble form rests is conse- 
crated ground, and it will ever be a sacred place 
in the minds and hearts of his brethren and their 
successors, and of his countrymen and their chil- 
dren. It needs no other mark than his own 
name to designate it as the grave of the great 
lawyer and citizen, and the hallowed resting- 
place of one of the greatest, purest and best men 
that ever lived in a State prolific in great men. 
If that name shall ever fall by that grave in any 
of the centuries that are to come, may one gen- 
eration of heroes after another, worthy to per- 
form the act, erect it in its proper place again, 
and still again, as often as occasion may require, 
and there may it stand in bright and living let- 
ters through all the stormy changes of this world 
until time itself shall' be no more." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3i5 



Mr. Bragg has never been a candidate for any- 
political office and has never even sought a 
nomination, but has repeatedly declined office 
in civil life, as in the army he frequently 
declined advancement by promotion. His aver- 
sion to the restraints, cares, and trammels of 
office have through life been a marked feature 
of his character and, perhaps, a fault. He is a 
prominent member of the order of Free-Masons, 
and holds the second office in the Grand En- 
campment of Knights Templar of the United 
States. He is also President of the Alabama 
State Bar Association. 

Captain Bragg occupies the front rank at the 
Bar of his native State, and as a lawyer has no 
superior in Alabama. He has appeared in many 
of the most important civil cases, among which 
may be mentioned one in which he defended a 
Probate Judge under the impeachment law : 
although one of the most uncompromising Dem- 
ocrats, he was, in the absence of able men 
among the Republican members of the bar, 
selected as counsel for this partisan Republican 
Judge, and in the appeal to the Supreme Court, 
which followed, convinced the court that the 
law under which the Judge was arraigned was 
unconstitutional. He has defended twenty- 
three men charged with murder, with such suc- 
cess that not one of them was even sent to the 
penitentiary. During the civil war, as Captain 
of Cleburne's Sharp-shooters, he was a fit leader 
for the daring spirits that formed that band. 
They were all picked men, in point of courage 
and skill with the rifle, and were principally 
assigned to picket duty, in which they displayed 
matchless skill and vigilance, and extraordinary 
powers of endurance. Absolutely fearless, phys- 
ically and morally, and himself an unerring 
shot, his daring courage and unbending will 
enforced the strictest discipline among these 
fiery spirits, by whom he was regarded with 
unbounded confidence and respect. As Chair- 
man of the Democratic State Executive Com- 
mittee during the memorable campaign of 1874, 
he displayed remarkable executive ability and 
consummate powers of organization ; and the 
rare intelligence with which he selected just the 



right man to operate at any given point evinced 
a knowledge of human nature as exceptional as 
it was wonderful. Patriotic and single-minded 
in his desire to do his utmost for his party and 
section, he has studiously avoided public office, 
although the highest in the gift of the people 
was within his reach had he so desired. He pos- 
sesses extraordinary control over men, and an 
instinctive insight into their motives of action. 
His brain-power and force of will are over- 
whelming, and his complete identification of 
himself with any cause in which he is interested, 
added to his indomitable energy, commands 
success in whatever he undertakes. While 
warmly devoted to his friends he is uncompro- 
mising with his antagonists, and the intense 
independence of his mind and character — 
amounting almost to a weakness — has frequently 
stood in the way of his interests. He possesses 
a clear conception of the true logic of any set 
of facts, wi^i great powers of analysis and sound 
judgment. Of the strictest integrity, and with 
the keenest sense of honor, he possesses great 
delicacy of sentiment, his pride rendering him 
particularly averse to placing himself under the 
slightest obligation. Fond of deer-hunting and 
field sports of every kind, he has remarkable 
skill with shot-gun, rifle and pistol, and many 
of his strongest personal friendships have been 
formed by the genial companionship around the 
camp-fire after a hard day's hunting. 

He married, in January, 1864, Susan W. 
Lockett, eldest daughter of Napoleon Lockett, 
of Marion, Ala, a wealthy lawyer and planter, 
and member of a prominent Virginia family. 
He has two children. 



COLONEL T. C. FULLER. 

North Carolina. 

HOMAS C. FULLER was born Febru- 
ary 27th, 1832, at Fayetteville, N. C, 
and is the son of Thomas Fuller, mer- 
chant, of Fayetteville. The family is 
of English extraction, and settled first 
in South Carolina; James Fuller, an ancestor of 




316 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the subject of this sketch, was with Marion in the 
Revolutionary war. His mother was Miss 
Catherine Raboteau, of old Huguenot stock from 
Pennsylvania. His early education was acquired 
at the well-known school of John B. Bobbitt, at 
Louisburg, N. C, and at the schools of the Rev. 
Mr. Jones, at Medway, Franklin county, and 
Rev. Simeon Colton, at Summerville, Cumber- 
land (now Harnett) county. He entered the 
University of North Carolina in 1849, remain- 
ing there two years. Judge W. A. Moore was a 
classmate of his, and Governor Z. B. Vance was 
a student during his residence there. His father 
dying in 1832, before he had completed his 
collegiate course he turned his attention to mer- 
cantile pursuits in his native town, and after- 
wards engaged in the manufacture of heavy 
wagons until the year 1854. In the latter part 
of this year he commenced the study of law at 
the law school of Judge R. M. Pearson, after- 
wards Chief-Justice of the State, al^ Richmond 
Hill, Yadkin county, N. C, and had for class- 
mates Judge Schenck and Judge Furches. He 
was admitted to practise in the Superior Courts 
of North Carolina, January 1st, 1856, and return- 
ing to Fayetteville, commenced the practice of his 
profession there, where he conducted a large and 
increasing business until the outbreak of hostili- 
ties in 1861. On the 1st of May of that year he 
volunteered as a private in the First Regiment 
of North Carolina troops, of which D. H. Hill 
was Colonel, and was at once ordered to Virginia 
and stationed on the York Peninsula, partici- 
pating in the battle of Bethel Church. This 
regiment was only enlisted for six months, and 
on its disbandment Captain (now Colonel) 
Starr, of Fayetteville, and Mr. Fuller as First 
Lieutenant, raised a company of light artillery, 
with which he served in the eastern part of 
North Carolina, and at Forts Fisher and Cas- 
well until January, 1863, and, during that time, 
took an active part in the battles of Kinston 
and Neuse River Bridge. In November, 1863, 
he was elected to the Confederate Congress 
from the Cape Fear District, and continued to 
fulfil his congressional duties until the close 
of the war. In 1865, under President Johnson's 



plan of reconstruction, he was elected to the 
United States Congress from the Cape Fear Dis- 
trict, but in common with others was not per- 
mitted to take his seat, the State being regarded 
by the dominant party as unfit for representa- 
tion. He continued to practise law in Fayette- 
ville from 1865 to 1868, and was the Democratic 
candidate for Congress for his district in the fall 
of 1867, but was defeated by O. H. Docker}'. 
In 1869 he formed a copartnership with his 
brother, under the style of B. & T. C. Fuller, at 
Fayetteville, which continued to conduct a 
prosperous business for some four years. In the 
fall of 1872 he was a candidate for elector on 
the Horace Greeley ticket. In March, 1873, ^ e 
removed to Raleigh, and entered into partner- 
ship with Hon. A. S. Merrimon.and Captain 
Samuel A. Ashe, under the style of Merrimon, 
Fuller & Ashe, which has continued to the 
present time, and is now one of the largest and 
most prosperous law-firms in North Carolina. 
Colonel Fuller is devoted to his profession, and 
his standing as a lawyer is probably superior to 
that of any other in North Carolina. To a 
large civil practice he has added almost the 
entire control of the cases in violation of the 
revenue laws, in the defence of which he has 
been singularly successful. But, perhaps, it is 
as a criminal lawyer that he has achieved the 
most brilliant success, his exceptional talent in 
winning over juries rendering him indispensable 
to every case of importance. Much of his suc- 
cess is due to his rare elocutionary powers, great 
command of language, and pointed, epigram- 
matic style, and he is distinguished for his clear- 
ness of perception, quick insight into the merits 
of a case, force of argument, and for his logical 
power in presenting cases to a jury. At York- 
town, Va., in 1861, in the well-known mutiny 
case against the Emmett Guards of Richmond, 
in which forty-nine men were tried before a 
military court, he defended the prisoners, and 
succeeded in securing their acquittal. He was 
engaged for the defence in above five hundred of 
the Ku-Klux cases, and notwithstanding packed 
juries and a prejudiced court, secured the ac- 
quittal of all but four. He has been engaged 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3 X 7 



for the defence in no less than twenty-five cases 
of murder, and never had a client executed. In 
the case of the United States vs. Tolar and 
others, in September, 1867, for the shooting of 
a negro, Archibald Beebee, charged with a crim- 
inal assault on a white woman, Colonel Fuller ap- 
peared for the defence. Great interest was mani- 
fested in the case, which lasted sixty days, and 
the prosecution, for which E. Graham Haywood 
was specially retained, took extraordinary pains 
in the excited state of public feeling at that time 
existing between the races, to secure the convic- 
tion of the prisoners, who were convicted, but 
the sentence afterwards commuted. His great 
command of language, ready wit and wonderful 
store of anecdote make him one of the best 
stump-speakers in the State, and though never 
seeking office for himself, he has always taken 
an active part in every campaign, and rendered 
signal service to the Democratic party in the last 
canvass, when they succeeded, for the first time 
since the war, in gaining complete control of 
the State. Genial, kind and straightforward, 
he possesses that nameless, magnetic power 
which attracts every one towards him, and his 
personal influence has made him an immense 
favorite with all. He tells a good story with 
gusto, and is as popular in social life as he is at 
the bar. 

He married, in October, 1S57, Miss Caroline 
D. Whitehead, daughter of AVilliamson White- 
head, merchant, of Fayetteville, and has six 
children; his eldest son, Williamson Fuller, 
being now a student at the University of Vir- 
ginia. 

HON. J. A. ENGELHARD. 

P _. North Carolina. 

(g/SU'OSEPH ADOLPHUS ENGELHARD, 
Secretary of State of North Carolina, 
1 8 7 7-1 880, was born in Monticello, 
^%fp Miss., and is the only son of Edward 
^ Engelhard, at that date a prominent 
merchant of that town, and subsequently of 
Jackson, the capital of the State. 

His very early education was received at the 



schools in his native town. At the age of ten, 
partly on account of his health, he accompanied 
his maternal uncle, Wilson Benson, who was a 
student at the theological seminary, to New 
Albany, Ind., where he remained for a good 
portion of the time an inmate of the family of 
the Rev. James Wood, for nearly six years. 

In 1848 he was sent to the Hopkins Grammar 
School, New Haven, Conn., in order to pre- 
pare for Yale College. His father dying in 
May of that year, he soon afterwards returned 
home, then at Jackson, and prepared for college 
there. In August, 1850, he entered the Fresh- 
man Class at the University of North Carolina, 
and graduated with distinction in June, 1854. 

He entered the Law Department at Harvard, 
Cambridge, Mass., early in the fall of that year, 
and remained until the following spring, when 
he left in consequence of the increasing un- 
pleasant relations between the North and South, 
in regard to the slavery question, and more 
especially on account of a decision rendered 
by one of the Professors of the Law School, who 
was the United States Judge for the District. 
He resumed the study of law at the Univer- 
sity of North Carolina under Hon. W. H. 
Battle, then a Justice of the Supreme Court, and 
Hon. S. F. Phillips, at present Solicitor-General 
of the United States. Having obtained county 
court license in 1856, he continued his legal 
studies under Daniel G. Fowle, subsequently 
Judge of the Superior Court, then and now a 
leading member of the Raleigh bar. He was 
admitted to the practice of law in 1S57. 

Beginning the practice of law in Tarboro, 
N. C, in 1857, he attained a fine practice, and 
soon acquired a good rank in his profession, to 
which he devoted his whole time until the break- 
ing out of the war between the States in May, 
1861, when, like most young men of his age, he 
volunteered his services to his State. A member 
of the "Edgecombe Guards," he was ordered to 
Beaufort Harbor, and belonged to the original 
garrison of Fort Macon. His company was 
soon afterwards moved to Raleigh, and became 
a portion of the First North Carolina (Bethel) 
Reeiment. 



3i8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Mr. Engelhard was transferred to the staff of 
Colonel L. O'B. Branch, Thirty-third North 
Carolina State Troops, and served on his staff — 
first as Captain and then as Major and Assistant- 
Quartermaster — until the battle of Sharpsburg 
(Antietam), September, 1S62, where his brave 
commander, shot through the head, fell and 
died in the arms of his favorite staff-officer. He 
then resigned his commission as Major and 
Assistant-Quartermaster, and accepted the posi- 
tion of Captain and Assistant-Adjutant-General 
on the staff of Brigadier-General W. D. Pender. 
In that capacity, and as Major, he served upon 
General Pender's staff in all the battles in which 
General Lee's army was engaged until General 
Pender, who had been promoted to the com- 
mand of a division, died from wounds received 
at the battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863. 
Major-General C. M. Wilcox succeeded to the 
command of Pender's division, and Major Engel- 
hard remained upon his staff until the surrender 
at Appomattox. He was twice wounded : at 
Chancellorsville in the right arm, and at Reem's 
Station, near Petersburg, in the side. 

In the fall of 1865 he was elected Secretary 
of the North Carolina Senate, and was re-elected 
in the fall of 1866. 

In December, 1865, he purchased one-half 
interest in the Wilmington Journal, and became 
the chief editor of that paper, in which capacity 
he remained until the spring of 1876, when he 
received the Democratic nomination for Secre- 
tary of State upon the ticket headed by Hon. Z. 
B. Vance for Governor. 

In 1872 he was a delegate from the State at 
large to the National Democratic Convention 
held in Baltimore. 

He began his canvass for Secretary of State 
on the 4th of July, 1876, and closed it on the 
4th of November, speaking almost every day 
during that time. At the election, held on the 
7th of November, he had the honor to lead his 
ticket, receiving 124,010 votes, being the largest 
vote ever given to any person in North Carolina, 
and defeating his opponent by some fifteen thou- 
sand majority. 

Entering upon the discharge of his duties on 




the 1st of January, 1877, Major Engelhard has 
proved himself worthy of the confidence reposed 
in him by the people. 

Major Engelhard married in Raleigh, Sep- 
tember 26th, 1855, Margaret Eliza, eldest 
daughter of John W. Cotten, formerly of Talla- 
hassee, Fla. 

HON. A. G. MAGRATH. 

South Carolina. 

NDREW GORDON MAGRATH was 
17 born in Charleston, S. C, February 

8th, 1813. He is of Irish descent, his 
^o) father having been engaged in the Irish 

rebellion of 1798, for which he was 
arrested ; but escaping, fled for his life to this 
country, and, having engaged in business as a 
merchant in the city of Charleston, died at an 
advanced age. The early education of the 
subject of this sketch was received at Bishop 
England's school, where he remained until 
1829, when he entered the South Carolina 
College, and graduated thence with high honors 
in 1 83 1 ; the Rev. Dr. James H. Thornwell, the 
distinguished Presbyterian divine, being a class- 
mate of his. He studied law under the well- 
known lawyer, James L. Petigru, and in 1834 
entered the Law School at Harvard University, 
graduating under the direction of Judge Story. 
Admitted to the bar in 1835, he at once com- 
menced the practice of his profession in Charles- 
ton under the most favorable auspices. He was 
elected to the State Legislature as member for 
Charleston in 1840 and re-elected in 1842, and, 
at the expiration of that term, withdrew from 
active political life and devoted all his energies 
to his profession. In 1850, when separate State 
action was urged by a large party in the State, 
he was conspicuous among those who opposed 
and defeated it. In the convention of the 
people of the State called for the consideration 
of that question, he was elected and sat as a 
member from Charleston. In the discussion of 
the exciting political questions of the day he 
contributed many articles to the press in oppo- 
sition to squatter sovereignty in the Territories, 








"l-4-^<^^ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3*9 



and the rights of the slave-holding States in 
newly-acquired territory of the United States. 
In the Presidential contest between Taylor and 
Cass, he sided with the portion of the Demo- 
cratic party in the State which supported Zachary 
Taylor. In 1856 he was elected a delegate to 
represent the State at large in the Democratic 
Convention at Cincinnati for the nomination of 
a candidate for the Presidency, but, before the 
meeting of the convention, was appointed, in 
April of that year, by President Pierce, District 
Judge of the State of South Carolina, and there- 
upon resigned his place in the Convention. At 
the time of his promotion to the Bench he was 
in the enjoyment of a very lucrative practice in 
his profession, and during his tenure of this 
judicial office raised by his efforts the United 
States Courts in the State of South Carolina to a 
position of high distinction. He continued on 
the Bench until November, i860, when the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln produced everywhere in 
the slave-holding States the greatest excitement. 
Judge Magrath, yielding to his sense of the obli- 
gation due to his State, and recognizing its rights 
in the great contingency which had been thus 
brought about, immediately sent in his resignation 
to President Buchanan on November 7th of that 
year. In his letter of resignation to the Presi- 
dent, he writes: "Should that conflict arise, I 
would not hesitate in my conduct. I shall devote 
my best energies to sustain the State of South 
Carolina in whatever position she may resolve to 
occupy in this crisis. The execution of my pur- 
pose in this respect might be productive of some 
embarrassment to you, if you were not aware of 
it until the emergency arose. In anticipation, 
therefore, of that occasion, I resign now into 
your hands my commission as Judge of the 
United States for the State of South Carolina. ' ' 

At the opening of the court Judge Magrath 
delivered the final decree in a case then pend- 
ing, and inquired of the grand jury if they had 
any presentments to make. In reply the fore- 
man, R. N. Gourdin, an eminent merchant in 
Charleston, said : " The verdict of the Northern 
section of the country announced to the country 
through the ballot-box has swept away the last 



hope for the permanence and stability of the 
Federal government ; the vast and solemn issues 
which have been forced upon us involve the 
existence of the government. In these extra- 
ordinary circumstances the Grand Jury respect- 
fully decline to proceed with their present- 
ments;" thereupon the Judge addressed them 
as follows : ' ' The business of the term has been 
disposed of, and, under ordinary circumstances, 
it would be my duty to dismiss you. In the 
political history of the United States an event 
has happened tif ominous import to the fifteen 
slave-holding States. The State of which we 
are citizens has been always understood to have 
deliberately fixed its purpose whenever that 
event should happen. Feeling an assurance of 
what will be the action of the State, I consider 
it my duty to prepare to obey its wishes. That 
preparation is made by the resignation of the 
•office I have held. For the last time I have, as 
a Judge of the United States, administered the 
laws of the United States within the limits of 
South Carolina. While thus acting in obedi- 
ence to a sense of duty, I cannot be indifferent 
to the emotions it must produce. That depart- 
ment of the government which I believe has 
maintained its integrity and preserved its purity 
has been suspended. So far as I am concerned, 
the temple of justice raised under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States is now closed. If it 
shall never again be opened, I thank God that its 
doors have been closed before its altar has been 
desecrated with sacrifices to tyranny. We are 
about to sever our relations with others because 
they have broken their covenant with us. Let 
us not break the covenant we have made with 
each other." The manner and the act were 
equally impressive and affecting as Judge Ma- 
grath divested himself of the judicial robe, which 
he had worn with acceptance, fidelity, and honor, 
to claim the independent position and privileges 
of a citizen of South Carolina. Eloquent ad- 
dresses were made to the bench by the officers 
of the court and the members of the bar, and a 
cordial tribute borne to the uniform courtesy, 
promptitude, and strict impartiality which had 
distinguished Judge Magrath's judicial career. 



320 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In the evening a meeting of the most influential 
men of the city was held at the Charleston Hotel, 
and from thence a procession of fully two thou- 
sand people, accompanied by a band of music, 
marched to his private residence, and, in re- 
sponse to enthusiastic cheering, were addressed 
by the Judge. The news of this resignation, 
which was followed by other United States 
officers, was received with acclamations through- 
out the State and in Georgia, and salutes and 
illuminations everywhere testified the hearty 
approval with which his course was viewed. 
None of the vacated offices were filled by the 
United States government. A feeling of the 
most intense excitement prevailed among all 
classes. An immense gathering of the people 
took place at the Institute Hall, and Judge 
Magrath, the Hon. W. F. Colcock, and James 
Conner, who had filled the place of District- 
Attorney of the United States and had resigned 
his place, subsequently to achieve a reputation 
so enviable in the army of the Confederate 
States, and afterwards in the councils of the 
State, were appointed to go to Columbia and 
represent the feelings and opinions of the peo- 
ple of Charleston. 

The resignation of Judge Magrath was then 
and will ever be regarded as prominent among 
those events which determined the relation of 
the State to the government of the United 
States, and was the first overt act and irrevoca- 
ble step to its secession from the Union. Im- 
mediately after his resignation he was elected 
by a large majority at the head of the ticket as 
delegate to the convention which passed the 
ordinance of secession, and while still a member 
of that body was selected by Governor Pickens 
as a leading member of his cabinet. As soon 
as the Confederate government was established 
he was appointed one of the Judges of the Con- 
federate States for South Carolina. In the exer- 
cise of the duties of his office he was called upon 
to decide many questions of public law, among 
which was that of the right of the government 
of the Confederate States to confiscate the prop- 
erty of its alien enemies ; decisions of prize law 
with reference to belligerent vessels bearing 



commissions of the Confederate States, and 
other important questions. He retained this 
office until November, 1864, when, at the meet- 
ing of the Legislature of that year, he was elected 
Governor of South Carolina. 

Governor Magrath was inaugurated on the 
20th of December, 1864; the oath of office was 
administered by the Hon. W. D. Porter, then 
President of the Senate. The newspapers of the 
day refer to it as a "gala-day. . . . Sherman 
was ignored, and a sense of temporary oblivion 
of the wasting army he commands and of the 
horrible deeds they perpetrate, indulged in 
almost universally. . . . From an early hour 
throngs of the fair sex poured into the State 
House by all the avenues of the city. The 
new Governor was to be inaugurated." The 
inaugural address of Governor Magrath was a 
calm and eloquent vindication of his State, and 
an appeal to the people to be firm and undis- 
mayed amid the reverses which had come upon 
them. The extract taken from the Guardian, 
published in Columbia, will indicate the style 
and temper of the address: "In those great 
springs of human conduct which give impulse to 
a people and sustain in them an unconquerable 
will, we have found, and will find while we pre- 
serve them, the means by which the courage of 
our armies is supported and the endurance of 
our people is maintained. At no time, nor 
under any circumstances should we lose sight of 
the great causes which provoked this war, nor 
should the ends we proposed to secure appear 
to our people forgotten or abandoned. If it 
should be that because of the war the great prin- 
ciples of civil liberty are given up, then are 
those principles but an empty sound. The free- 
dom which cannot be tolerated in war has no 
real existence in peace. With us these great 
principles of civil liberty are set forth in our 
Constitution. In that of the Confederate gov- 
ernment they are taken from those great char- 
ters which centuries ago defined the limits be- 
yond which the power of government should 
not invade the rights of the citizen. They have 
come down to us with the-authority which cen- 
turies of experience have given to the wisdom 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



321 



which marks them — the necessity which always 
exists for their observance. With us they are 
for the purposes of our enjoyment, secured by 
laws which sustain our rights by preventing an 
invasion of them. Let these laws be always in 
force, let them have free course and be felt by 
all. In the history of this war no page will be 
more instructive than that which tells how, amid 
the din of arms, the authority of the law kept 
on its even course, and preserved amid the vio- 
lence of revolution the great economy of our 
system in maintaining order and securing right. 
If the citizen is recreant to his duty, let the law 
enforce it ; if the citizen is affected in his rights, 
let the law defend him. It has the power to 
compel the performance of public duty ; it has 
the power to vindicate the sanctity of private 
right. To those institutions which are fixed, to 
that government which has stability in its opera- 
tions, will the affections and confidence of those 
be given who live under the influence of one or 
obey the commands of the other. The strength 
which is born of the fury of revolutionary rule, 
terrible as is the energy of its spasm, yields to 
the steady influence of that power which is 
wielded by a government to which tradition 
brings the authority of the established consent 
of those who are governed. And no circum- 
stance has more contributed to the success of 
that movement which is known as the secession 
of these States, than that each State possessed 
within itself an established and organized gov- 
ernment under the influence of which right was 
maintained and wrong redressed. It was thus 
that one of the most remarkable instances in all 
history of a change in the political government 
of this people was accomplished without the 
slightest disturbance of their social condition, 
and without the slightest exhibition of license 
or tendency to anarchy." During his tenure of 
the gubernatorial office the State passed through 
a period of the greatest and most fearful depres- 
sion it has ever experienced. The treasury 
bankrupt, the State invaded, the people im- 
poverished and discouraged ; helpless in the 
present — hopeless in the future. Prior to Sher- 
man's occupation of Columbia all the State 

21 



archives possible were removed and the re- 
mainder destroyed. Governor Magrath, leaving 
the capital the same morning that it was occu- 
pied by the Federal troops, returned to it to 
find the " Garden City " a heap of smouldering 
ruins. At the fall of the Confederacy in April, 
1865, he was arrested by order of the govern- >' 
ment of the United States and confined at Fort 
Pulaski. Knowing that his arrest was ordered 
and conscious of the hopelessness of the contest, 
Governor Magrath, on the 22d of May, 1865, 
to the people of South Carolina, published his 
last official communication. After referring to 
the orders which charge him with disloyalty to 
the United States, having committed sundry and 
divers acts of treason against the same, and for- 
bidding obedience to him as the Governor of 
the State, he says: "I cannot, under all the 
circumstances which surround you, expose you 
to the consequences which will be produced be- 
cause of any effort on my part — fruitless, if not 
mischievous, as it must be — to exercise those 
functions which you in your confidence have 
committed to me. Nor am I willing that with- 
out such consequences to you, while in the execu- 
tive chair of the State, I shall be held forth to 
the world charged with crime, without the most 
positive declaration that I am ready to meet and 
repel it wherever and by whomsoever made. In 
that peculiar condition of our affairs, which is 
now disclosed to you, I feel that my duty, 
whether considered in regard to myself as your 
executive or to you as a people whose welfare is 
dear to me, is at once plain and imperative. I 
will not introduce within this State discord or 
contention. I will not allow myself to furnish 
the occasion by which a single atom of suffering 
can be added to that load which now weighs so 
heavily upon you. I will not give opportunity 
for conflict between the government of the State 
and the government of the United States. The 
functions, therefore, of the executive are sus- 
pended by me from this day." . . . "What- 
ever, therefore, may be the feeling which belongs 
to me as a man or a citizen, in a case like this 
where conviction precedes the hearing and sen- 
tence comes before trial, I feel that it becomes 



322 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



me to be mindful of the considerations which 
involve your peace and affect your welfare. I 
have said to you before, I say to you now, the 
war is over; hostilities have ceased, and it is 
your duty to forbear opposition which is hope- 
less — contest which is unavailing — and reconcile 
to yourselves that submission which the govern- 
ment of the United States can impose and you 
cannot resist." . . . " In thus suspending the 
active exercise of the duties of my office, I do 
so with the most earnest wish that your suffer- 
ings may soon find mitigation and relief, that 
you may retrieve the waste and loss of property 
which you have endured in the progress of the 
war, and that you may experience those bless- 
ings, intellectual, social, and moral, which under 
the favor of God were the great ends which I 
desired to accomplish. To have succeeded in 
these would have secured to me a reward the 
richest and only inheritance which I could have 
left to my children. With regard to myself, so 
far as I am affected by the charges which are 
made against me, I am ready to answer to them 
or to any of them. At any time or place, when 
or where my presence may be desired or required 
for investigation, I shall be there, if notified 
thereof, with the least possible delay. What- 
ever I have said I believed to be true ; whatever 
I have done I believed to be right. And with 
this consciousness of the rectitude of my pur- 
pose, and of the integrity of my conduct, I shall 
not avoid, delay, or hinder the closest scrutiny 
that can be devised." 

His companions in imprisonment were Judge 
Campbell, formerly of the Supreme Court, Hon. 
R. M. T. Hunter, Hon. D. L. Yulee, Governor 
Allison, of Florida, Governor Clark, of Mis- 
sissippi, Hon. George A. Trenholm, and Gen- 
eral Mercer, of Georgia. The State Convention 
which met in September, 1S65, under the direc- 
tion of President Johnson, made a strong appeal 
to the President for his release, but it was not 
until the latter end of December of that year 
that he was liberated on his parole. Released 
from imprisonment he returned to the city of 
Charleston, where he resumed the practice of 
the law and soon re-established himself in a suc- 



cessful and lucrative practice. Among those 
excepted from the right to hold office, his disa- 
bilities not removed, he has not taken any 
active part in politics, but his opinions have not 
been withheld and they have constantly incul- 
cated the wisdom of that liberal and conserva- 
tive temper which has recently been adopted, 
and the happy results of which are now so much 
felt and widely acknowledged. From the very 
commencement of his career Judge Magrath 
commanded a high position and large practice 
at the bar, and few men of his age have attained 
to such distinguished professional eminence. 
There has been scarcely an important case 
while he was at the bar, during the last thirty 
years, in which he has not taken a prominent 
part. When elevated to the Bench the United 
States Court in South Carolina was in great dis- 
favor ; but little business was transacted in it, 
parties resorting almost exclusively to the State 
courts: His ability and close attention to the 
duties ot his office at once commanded the 
entire confidence of the Bar; and in consequence 
of it the business rapidly increased to large pro- 
portions and continued to increase during his 
occupation of the Bench. It is somewhat re- 
markable that from the adoption of the Consti- 
tution of the United States to the time when 
Judge Magrath was appointed to the Bench, no 
term of the United States Court had ever been 
held in the Western District of the State. Within 
a few months after his appointment, Judge Ma- 
grath opened the court at Greenville with the 
power of a Circuit as well as a District Court ; 
and the terms of that court have since been 
regularly held. While no one is more liked by 
his cotemporaries, Judge Magrath is exceedingly 
popular with the younger members of the pro- 
fession, conferring with, counselling and aiding 
them with his experience and advice. To an 
acute judicial mind, with cultivated tastes and 
courteous manners, he adds a calmness of tem- 
per and composure that is'never overthrown by 
any disturbing cause. Not acting under mere 
impulse or excitement he considers every ques- 
tion carefully and dispassionately, and, as has 
been said of him, with the ripe experience of "a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



323 




consummate judge. " His genial social qualities 
have endeared him to a host of friends, while 
his great public services have won for him the 
warm respect and confidence of the people of 
his native State. 

REV. W. M. WINGATE, D. D. 

North Carolina. 

|F the ministers of North Carolina, one 
of the most useful and distinguished is 
the excellent gentleman whose name 
heads this article. Though nearly all 
of his professional life has been spent 
in this State, Dr. Wingate is a native of Dar- 
lington, S. C, where, for several generations, 
his family has been one of wealth, character, 
and social position. He was born March 22d, 
1828, and is therefore now fifty years of age. 
He made a profession of faith in Christ at an 
early age, and united with the Baptist Church 
of the village of his birth in his thirteenth year. 
He was graduated from Wake Forest College, 
North Carolina, in 1849; attended the Furman 
Theological Institute, of Greenville, S. C, for 
two years, not quite completing the full course 
of instruction, and returning to North Carolina 
in January, 1853, became the agent for the en- 
dowment of his Alma Mater, in which position 
he labored with much success till June, 1854, 
when he was called to the Professorship of Men- 
tal and Moral Science, and made President pro 
tempore of the institution. Two years afterwards 
he was made President of the college in full, 
and this position of honor and responsibility, to 
which he was called so early in life, he has now 
filled for twenty-five years. 

As it is the object of this work to present, as 
far as practicable, the institutions of the South, 
as well as its representative men, we will give a 
brief sketch of the college with which Dr. Win- 
gate has been so long identified, before attempt- 
ing a delineation of his character. 

In 1832 the Baptist Convention of North 
Carolina, then less than two years old, met at 
Rives Chapel, in Chatham county, and unani- 
mously adopted the following resolution : 



" That the convention deem it expedient to 
purchase a suitable farm, and to adopt other 
preliminary measures for the establishment of a 
Baptist Literary Institution in this State on the 
manual labor principle." 

Under this resolution the farm of Dr. Calvin 
Jones, in Wake county, sixteen miles north of 
the city of Raleigh, and containing six hundred 
acres, was bought for $2,000, and Wake Forest 
Manual Labor Institute was originated. The 
Rev. Samuel Wait, D. D., was elected principal, 
and the school was opened February, 1834, with 
sixteen students, which number was increased to 
sixty-five by the end of the session. 

The farm was cultivated in the afternoon, and 
at first two propositions were claimed as settled : 
"First, that students will labor; and second, 
their labor can be turned to advantage." An 
overseer was appointed with the title of " Tutor 
of Husbandry;" boys under twelve years of 
age received two cents an hour, and those over 
twelve, three cents. But when settlements were 
made, at the end of the session, so many deduc- 
tions were included for sickness and absence 
that parents were disappointed, and the manual 
labor system was soon voted a failure and 
abolished. In 1838 a large college building was 
completed, the cost of which remained unpaid 
for many years, and came very near destroying 
the institution. 

Dr. Samuel Wait presided over the college for 
a dozen' years ; he was succeeded by Rev. Wil- 
liam Hooper, D. D., LL. D., a man of great 
learning and purity of character, and a great- 
grandson of that William Hooper who signed 
the Declaration of Independence. 

Dr. Hooper, after an administration of but 
two years, was succeeded by the Rev. G. B. 
White, and he, in turn, by the subject of this 
sketch, as stated above, in 1854. Operations were 
suspended and the college building was occu- 
pied as a hospital during the war, but in 1867 
work was resumed. Unfortunately the endow- 
ment of Wake Forest College, like that of nearly 
all Southern institutions, amounting to between 
eighty and a hundred thousand dollars, was in- 
vested in Confederate securities, and wrecked 



3 2 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



with the " Lost Cause." It has now about forty ophy, his chosen fields of study, he is an admir- 
thousand dollars of invested endowment, with ' able instructor. 

the prospect of a gradual but constant increase | The supreme excellence of the man, however, 
to its permanent fund. Anew and handsome is found in his moral qualities. His nature is 
building for society halls and lecture-rooms is in | kindness itself. Simple-hearted as a little child, 

the gentleness of his disposition and the sweet 
sincerity of his piety render him the object of 
universal esteem and affection. If he has an 
enemy in the world, we do not know it, for 
there is about him as little of original sin and 
actual transgression as any one we have ever 
seen. He married Miss Mary Webb, of North 
Carolina, and has seven children, two sons and 
five daughters. [Since deceased.] 



process of erection, the gift of two generous citi- 
zens of Raleigh, J. M. Heck and J. G. Williams, 
and a third building for a chapel will probably be 
erected during the next year. The Rev. J. S. 
Purifry raised ten thousand dollars among the 
Bartists of the North for this institution in 
1876 and 1877. 

Though beginning its existence with a debt, 
rather than an endowment, and always crippled 
in its operations by want of funds, this college 
has an honorable record, having educated a 
hundred ministers of the gospel, besides many 
of other professions. It has always maintained 
a very high character for the morality of its stu- 
dents, only one and a-half per cent, of the young 
men educated there having been failures in life, a 
record which is scarcely paralleled by any col- 
lege in the land. Judge John Kerr, a distin- 
guished jurist of North Carolina, recently said 
that "it had done more to Christianize the 
State than any college in it." 

But to return to the President : In person Dr. 
Wingate is tall and spare; his complexion is 
dark, as are also his hair and eyes; he is gentle 
and slow of manner, and slow of speech, both in 
conversation and in the pulpit. His voice is an 
excellent one, deep and full in tone, though not 
specially strong. In speaking he is usually calm 
and deliberate, but when aroused his manner is 
stirrirg and animated in a high degree. He 
greatly excels as an expository preacher, and his 
discourses are always rich in thought and spir- 
itual experience. He is very unequal in his 
pulpit efforts, rarely doing himself justice on 
special occasions, by reason of his great mod- 
esty; but, as Mr. J. H. Mills recently said, in 
the South Atlantic Monthly, "when fully aroused, 
he has no peer in our State." The mental attri- 
butes of Dr. Wingate are of a high order. He 
is a vigorous and original thinker, and his pow- 
ers of analysis are unusually fine; hence in the 




GENERAL J. E. JOHNSTON. 

Virginia. 

{5% OSEPH ECCLESTON JOHNSTON was 
born in Prince Edward county, Va. 
He is a son of Peter Johnston, a lieu- 
tenant in the army of the Revolution, 
and afterwards a distinguished legisla- 
tor and judge, and Mary Wood, daughter of 
Valentine Wood, a rich planter in Goochland 
county, and Lucy Henry, sister of Patrick 
Henry, the patriot. His grandfather, Peter 
Johnston, emigrated from Scotland between 
1725 and 1730, and established himself on a 
plantation in Virginia. 

He entered the United States Military Aca- 
demy at West Point in 1825, graduating in 1829, 
when he was appointed Second Lieutenant in 
the Fourth Artillery, becoming First Lieutenant 
July 31st, 1836; and, resigning May 31st, 1837, 
was appointed First Lieutenant of Topographical 
Engineers July 7th, 1838. Meanwhile the Semi- 
nole war had broken out and drawn him into it, 
where he so bore himself that, on the suspension 
of hostilities, he was brevetted Captain for gal- 
lantry in the field — the field in this case mean- 
ing swamps and hummocks. In 1S43 he served 
on the survey of the boundary line between the 
United States and the British North American 
Provinces, and from 1S44 to 1S46 on the Coast 



departments of intellectual and moral philos- j Survey. In September of the latter year he was 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



325 



made Captain of Topographical Engineers, in 
which capacity he entered the Mexican war, 
serving under General Scott in all the important 
engagements, being severely wounded while re- 
connoitring at Cerro Gordo, and again in at- 
tacking the city of Mexico, and successively 
brevetted Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colo- 
nel, besides having been made Lieutenant- 
Colonel of Voltigeurs, one of the temporary 
regiments added to the army for that war. On 
the disbanding of the voltigeurs, August 28th, 
1848, he was reinstated, by act of Congress, as 
Captain of Topographical Engineers, and again 
brevetted Lieutenant-Colonel. From 1853 to 
1855 he was in charge of the Western River Im- 
provements, a field of duty calling for the 
highest scientific abilities, united with the 
soundest practical sense, and which he occupied 
to the satisfaction of the government and with 
distinguished credit to himself. In the spring 
of 1855, four regiments having been added to 
the army, two of cavalry and two of infantry, 
he was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the First 
Cavalry. In 1858 he was Acting Inspector- 
General in the Utah Expedition, and in June, 
i860, became Quartermaster-General, with the 
grade of Brigadier-General, a position which he 
filled at the outbreak of the civil war. 

On the 17th of April, 1861, Virginia passed 
her ordinance of secession ; and, holding that 
both duty and honor required him to attend the 
fortunes of his native State, whatever they might 
be, he resigned his commission in the United 
States army, April 22d, 1861, and tendered his 
services to the Confederate authorities, by whom 
he was immediately appointed a Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, being the second on the list of Confederate 
officers of that rank. He commanded the force 
which occupied Harper's Ferry, in May, 1861, 
and which was opposed to the Federal General 
Patterson, in that vicinity, through May, June, 
and part of July. Evading General Patterson, 
he arrived on the field of Bull Run just before 
the battle, and, outranking General Beauregard, 
took command during the conflict, though with- 
out changing the plan of battle which the latter 
had formed. He subsequently commanded at 



Yorktown and before Richmond. At the battle 
of Seven Pines, May 31st, 1862, pronounced by 
the Prince de Joinville "a type of American 
battles," he was severely wounded, and rendered 
unfit for active military service until the 12th 
of the following November, when he reported 
for duty, and was assigned to the command of 
the Departments of Tennessee and Mississippi. 
Finding that it would be impracticable to com- 
mand two armies, so far apart and having differ- 
ent objects in view, he so represented it to 
President Davis, but was overruled. On the 9th 
of May, 1863, however, during General Grant's 
campaign against Vicksburg, he was directed to 
take chief command of the forces in Mississippi, 
the previous orders of the administration having 
required his presence wholly in Tennessee. He 
attempted, though with a totally inadequate 
force, to relieve General Pemberton, in Vicks- 
burg, but without success, it not being within 
human power to command success, at least 
under such circumstances. Vicksburg having 
surrendered, the army fell back to Jackson, 
which was evacuated on the 16th of July, on 
the 2 2d of which he was relieved of the com- 
mand of the Department of Tennessee. About 
the end of July he received from President Davis 
a letter commenting very harshly on much of 
his military conduct since the previous Decem- 
ber, to which he returned an exhaustive vindi- 
cation of his movements. On the 18th of De- 
cember, 1863, after General Bragg's defeat at 
Chattanooga, he was ordered to assume the 
command of the Army of Tennessee, occupying 
a position at Dalton, Ga., which he was com- 
pelled to abandon, in consequence of the march 
of the Federal army, under General Sherman, 
towards Resaca, and fell back successively to 
Resaca, Allatoona Pass, Kenesaw Mountain and 
Atlanta, fighting and flanked by turns, but al- 
ways retiring before greatly superior forces, con- 
ducting his retreat in such masterly style that 
it may be said to stand out from the record of 
the war almost as prominently as the retreat 
of the ten thousand from that of the expedition 
of Cyrus. General Hooker, who was in the 
Federal army opposed to him, says of this re- 



326 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



treat, in a letter to General M. Lovell, October 
21st, 1873: 

"Our vast superiority in numbers enabled us 
to divide our army and turn all his positions 
without risk. General Johnston, however, as 
he abandoned his intrenched positions, con- 
ducted his retreat, in my judgment, in a pru- 
dent and consummate manner, both in strategy 
and tactics. All his positions chosen for making 
a stand were selected with the utmost sagacity 
and skill, and his defences were thrown- up and 
strengthened with the exercise of marvellous 
ingenuity and judgment. Considering that 
Johnston's army was on the retreat, I think it 
remarkable that we found no deserters, no 
stragglers, no muskets or knapsacks, and no 
material of war. In fact, it was the cleanest 
and best-conducted retreat, as was remarked by 
every one, that we had ever seen or read of. 
After having given the subject a good deal of 
reflection, I unhesitatingly state, as my convic- 
tion, that this retreat was the most prominent 
feature of the war, and, in my judgment, reflects 
the highest credit upon its author." 

It should be added that the Federal loss in 
killed and wounded must have been six times as 
great as that of the Confederates. Nevertheless, 
failing to satisfy the expectations of the authori- 
ties at Richmond in arresting the advance of the 
Federal army, he was, July 17th, 1864, ordered 
to turn over the command of the army to Gen- 
eral Hood. On hearing of this change of com- 
manders, General Sherman, who presumably 
knew what he was talking about, declared, ex- 
ultingly, according to the Federal General Mc- 
Cook : "Heretofore the fighting has been as 
Johnston pleased, but hereafter it will be as I 
please." After his removal from command he 
took up his residence in Macon, Ga. ; but on the 
23d of February, 1865, General Sherman having 
marched from Atlanta to Savannah, and thence 
into South Carolina, he was directed to assume 
the command of the Army of Tennessee, with 
all troops in the Department of South Carolina, 
Georgia and Florida, and to "concentrate all 
available forces and drive back Sherman." Al- 
though the force at his disposal was utterly 



insufficient to check the march of Sherman's 
army, he fought a part of it at Bentonville, 
N. C, March iSth, soon after which he received 
intelligence of General Lee's surrender of the 
Army of Northern Virginia, and on the 20th of 
April surrendered his forces to General Sher- 
man, at Durham's Station, near Greensboro, 
North Carolina. 

Since the war he has been actively employed 
in the industrial reconstruction of the South, 
especially in connection with agricultural, com- 
mercial and railroad enterprises, though he has 
found time, or seized it, to prepare a compre- 
hensive history of his military operations in the 
South, entitled, "Narrative of Military Opera- 
tions directed during the Late War between the 
States," and published in 1874. For a number 
of years after- the war he resided at Selma, Ala., 
and Savannah, Ga., but he subsequently took 
up his residence in Richmond, Va., where he 
engaged in the insurance business. 

In the fall of 1878 General Johnston was 
elected to Congress from the Third Congres- 
sional District of Virginia. 

He married, in 1845, Lydia Milligan, third 
daughter of Louis McLane, of Delaware, a Rep- 
resentative in Congress, and later a Senator from 
that State, and in 1829 Minister to England 
under President Jackson, in whose Cabinet he 
afterwards sat successively as Secretary of the 
Treasury and Secretary of State, and in 1845 
was Ambassador to England, charged with the 
settlement of the Oregon question. 



EX-GOVERNOR FOOTE. 

Louisiana. 

(l ENRY STUART FOOTE, the subject of 
this article, was born, in the year 1804, 
in Fauquier county, Virginia. He was 
educated partly in a private school near 
his birthplace, and spent several years 
subsequently at Georgetown College, D. C, and 
at Washington College, now known as the 
Washington Lee University. He did not take 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3 2 7 



a degree at either institution. He h understood 
to have devoted himself, in after years, to the 
study of the languages and general science with 
much assiduity and with marked success. 

At the age of nineteen he obtained licence to 
practise law, and has been engaged in the exer- 
cise of his profession, with several short inter- 
missions, for more than fifty-five years. At the 
age of twenty-one he sold his patrimonial prop- 
erty in Virginia, and removed to Tuscumbia, 
in the State of Alabama. 

Here he married and resided for five years, 
having acquired considerable reputation both as 
a lawyer and as the editor of a spirited and ably 
conducted newspaper. 

In January, 1831, he removed to Vicksburg, 
in the State of Mississippi, and resided there be- 
tween two and three years, when he was driven 
with his family into the interior of the State by 
the breaking out of cholera. He then became 
a resident of Hinds county, and for many years 
enjoyed a large and lucrative practice as a law- 
yer, ranking very high, both as a jurist and 
advocate. In the year 1839 he became a mem- 
ber of the State Legislature, in which body he 
served for only a single session, and acquired 
some celebrity by procuring the passage of a 
very stringent anti-liquor law. He had pre- 
viously accepted for a short period, at the hands 
of President Jackson, the office of "Surveyor- 
General of Public Lands, South of Tennessee." 
This office not being suited to his taste, he re- 
signed it, and soon became again actively en- 
listed in professional pursuits. In 1839-40 he 
located in New Orleans, as the partner of Seth 
Barton, an eminent attorney in that city; but 
was in a short time persuaded by his friends to 
return to Mississippi, with a view to enlisting in 
politics. He was a year or two after elected to 
the United States Senate over Governor McNutt, 
and several distinguished candidates besides. 

He served in the Senate with much honor, 
and ranked high as a great man among the great 
men of that day, but in about four years volun- 
tarily resigned this position, in order to run as 
a Union candidate for the office of Governor. 
In this canvass he had two opponents of seces- 



sion proclivities ; the first of whom, Governor 
Quitman, getting tired of the contest, disap- 
peared from the field, which was soon occupied 
by the distinguished statesman, Hon. Jefferson 
Davis, who, in spite of his military popularity, 
was defeated. 

General Foote then served in the office of 
Governor, and when near the end of his official 
term, he resigned this position and removed to 
California. In his valedictory message to the 
Legislature, Governor Foote based his resigna- 
tion upon the fact that the people of Mississippi 
had just discredited themselves by repudiating 
what was known as the "Planters' Bank bonds." 
He then removed to California, where for four 
years he was greatly distinguished both in his 
profession and politically. Having lost his first 
wife in California, he married a second time in 
Nashville, Tennessee. Here he exercised his 
profession successfully for two years, his national 
reputation always bringing him into the front 
rank among the greatest men of the times ; about 
this time the civil war having commenced, 
though he was well known to be a Union man, 
he was twice elected to the Confederate Con- 
gress, in which body for nearly four years he 
became distinguished as a warm and inflexible 
opponent of Mr. Davis, his former antagonist, 
on the Union question and his policy. 

In 1S65 Governor Foote visited Europe, and 
did not long sojourn there, but returned to his 
home in Tennessee. 

His whole course since the termination of the 
Confederate struggle has been marked with 
moderation and a profound regard for the Con- 
stitution and laws of the Union. He was one 
of the Presidential Electoral candidates for Ten- 
nessee in 1876 on the Republican ticket. 

He has for the last six months occupied the 
position of Superintendent of the United States 
Mint in New Orleans, and has in this position 
given universal satisfaction. As a cultured gen- 
tleman of a high order, distinguished for his 
profound legal abilities, and a broad grasp, of 
thought, and full of noble, generous impulses, he 
not only adorned but magnified the positions 
which he filled. Mr. Foote is the author of 



328 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



several works which have been read with pleas- 
ure and instruction by thousands. The first of 
these, written in 1840, was entitled, "Texas and 
the Texans," written at the urgent request of 
President Lamar and the members of his Cabinet. 

In 1866 he published a highly interesting vol- 
ume upon the civil war, just then terminated. 

He is also the author of " Casket of Reminis- 
cences," and a fourth work, "The Bench and 
Bar of the Southwest." 

The career of Mr. Foote has been a stormy 
but romantic one, and in the early part of it he 
is known to have fought four duels — all more or 
less connected with political animosities. 

A peculiar characteristic that frequently ar- 
rayed him in antagonism to men and measures 
was a directness of purpose, discarding all sub- 
terfuges and doubtful policies, aiming in his 
judgment at the right end, and employing the 
right means, believing " that honesty was the 
best policy; " it was this marked trait of char- 
acter that caused him to be misrepresented by 
his opponents, and in a great measure misun- 
derstood by the public. 

Had Governor Foote pursued the role of a 
shrewd politician, adopted measures and means 
usually employed by our so-called statesmen, 
sought to win public favor by masking the true 
and honest purposes of his great mind, and 
catering to popular whims and currents as they 
set in this or that direction, he might have oc- 
cupied the Presidential chair, and been crowned 
with the highest honors in the gift of American 
citizens. 

DR. G. A. KETCHUM. 

Alabama. 

^EORGE AUGUSTUS KETCHUM was 
born April 6th, 1825, at Augusta, Ga. 
The Ketchum family is of Welsh de- 
scent, the name having been originally 
spelt Chatham, and they are descended 
in direct line from the distinguished British 
statesman, the Earl of Chatham. The ancestors 
of the American branch of the family settled 
originally in New Brunswick, and many of that 




name are now to be found in Nova Scotia. 
Ralph Ketchum, the father of the subject of this 
sketch, was a cotton merchant of Augusta, Ga., 
and in 1835 removed to Mobile, Ala. ; he mar- 
ried Christiana Colden Griffiths, daughter of an 
English officer, whose family was related to the 
Coldens, of New York, and the Cadwalladers, 
of Pennsylvania. He had five sons, of whom 
Richard Colden Ketchum was a distinguished 
Presbyterian minister of Atlanta, Ga., and mar- 
ried a daughter of Judge Longstreet, of Augusta, 
Ga. , the well-known author of "Georgia 
Scenes." Major William H. Ketchum com- 
manded a battery of artillery in the Confederate 
service, and is now a cotton merchant in 
Mobile. Colonel Charles T. Ketchum was 
Colonel of the Thirty-Eighth Alabama Infantry 
and died about three years ago ; and Captain 
John R. Ketchum was killed at Atlanta in the 
first battle fought under General Hood after the 
removal of General J. E. Johnston. George 
A. Ketchum received his early education under 
the preceptorship of A. S. Vigus and afterwards 
of D. F. Merrill, both teachers of considerable 
distinction, and was prepared for college by A. 
A. Kimball, a private tutor. He was about to 
enter Princeton College as a sophomore when 
his father's failure in business obliged him to 
alter his plans. Mr. Kimball, his tutor, who 
was the principal of a female seminary at- Liv- 
ingston, Sumter county, Ala., took great inter- 
est in the welfare of his pupil, and offered him, 
although then but sixteen years of age, the posi- 
tion of assistant teacher in his academy, which, 
under the circumstances, he accepted. He read 
medicine under Dr. F. A. Ross, of Mobile, and 
entered the City Hospital as interne or resident 
medical student, occupying that position for 
about two years. In 1843, during his residence 
at the hospital, a severe epidemic of yellow fever 
prevailed in Mobile, and he had almost the sole 
charge of the patients, as the visiting physicians 
were chiefly engaged in outside practice. He 
was thus at a very early period of his career 
brought in contact with this scourge which he 
subsequently achieved such unusual success in 
treating. . His first course of medical lectures 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3 2 9 



were taken at the Medical College of South 
Carolina, Charleston, S. C, at the session 1844- 
45, and in the spring of 1845 ne went t0 Phila- 
delphia, where he became interne at the Blockley 
Almshouse for about four months. He subse- 
quently resided with Dr. W. W. Gerhard, a dis- 
tinguished physician, and author of several able 
treatises. He attended a course of lectures at 
the University of Pennsylvania, and was gradu- 
ated thence M. D. in the spring of 1846. Among 
his cotemporaries at the University were Dr. 
Edward Shippen, afterwards a surgeon in the 
United States navy ; Professor Brickell, of New 
Orleans ; Dr. E. P. Gaines, of Mobile ; and Dr. 
Easton Young, of Savannah. Dr. Ketchum 
commenced the practice of his profession in 
Mobile, in May, 1846, and^t once stepped into 
a large practice. He became a member of the 
Mobile Medical Society in the same year, and 
was also elected Physician to the Samaritan So- 
ciety, a charitable institution for the relief of 
the indigent sick poor. During the yellow fever 
epidemics of 1847 and 1848, he was the first 
physician to administer large doses of quinine 
in the earlier stages of the disease, and the 
marked success which followed his mode of 
treatment in the subsequent epidemics of 1853, 
1858, 1867, 1870, 1873 and l8 7 8 > > n Mobile, 
has caused it to be almost universally adopted 
as the general practice of the profession in yel- 
low fever, in the South. 

In 1848 he was elected Physician to the City 
Hospital of Mobile, and in the same year, in 
conjunction with Dr. J. C. Nott, established a 
private infirmary principally for the accommoda- 
tion of sick negroes ; this soon developed into 
an extensive establishment, and after many years 
of successful operation, was closed at the termi- 
nation of the civil war. He took an active part 
in the organization of the Medical Association 
of the State of Alabama, and was its first Secre- 
tary, its Orator, in 185 1, President, in 1873, 
and has been a member of the Board of Censors 
and Committee of Public Health since 1874. 
In 1858, in conjunction with Dr. J. C. Nott, he 
originated the Medical College of Alabama ; the 
establishment of a preparatory school of medi- 



cine was first contemplated, but Dr. Ketchum 
strongly advocated the more ambitious plan of a 
Medical College. This proposition met with 
the earnest co-operation of Drs. W. H. Ander- 
son and F. A. Ross, and an appeal was made to 
the public which resulted in the course of a few 
weeks in $50,000 being subscribed for the pur- 
chase of a museum and chemical apparatus. The 
college was first opened in a building rented for 
the purpose, but this proving unsuitable, an 
appeal was made to the Legislature and an 
appropriation of $50,000 was secured for the 
erection of a suitable building. Dr. Ketchum 
was elected Professor of the Theory and Prac- 
tice of Medicine, a position which he retains to 
the present time. 

Previous to the war Dr. Ketchum was Surgeon- 
General of the Fourth Division Alabama State 
Militia under Major-General T. W. McCoy, of 
whose staff he was a member. During the 
political ferment in the winter of 1860-61, he 
presided, by request, at the first meeting called 
in Mobile to consider what action should be 
taken in the then threatening aspect of affairs. 
He was one of the four delegates from Mobile, 
the others being Judge E. S. Dargan, Major 
Humphreys and Judge Bragg, sent to the con- 
vention held at Montgomery, and took an active 
part in the discussions of that body, which re- 
sulted in the passage of the ordinance of seces- 
sion. As Volunteer Surgeon he went with the 
First Company of the State Artillery to Pensa- 
cola, and while there received his commission 
as Surgeon of the Fifth Alabama, which was 
shortly afterwards ordered to Virginia. On his 
way through Mobile he found that almost all the 
medical men had joined the army, and that, in 
consequence, there was not sufficient medical 
assistance available for the citizens. At the 
solicitation of Dr. J. C. Nott he accepted a 
position as Surgeon in the organization formed 
for the defence of the city, which he continued 
to hold until the surrender. During that period 
the population of Mobile was considerably in- 
creased, and as there was much sickness, the 
duties became very arduous, Dr. Gordon and 
himself being the only ones of the older practi- 



.33° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



tioners left in the city. He was a member of 
the Board of Aldermen and President of the 
Common Council of Mobile for a number of 
years, both before and during the war, and in 
his official capacity was one of the deputation 
who surrendered the city to the Federal forces 
under General Gordon Granger, early in April, 
1865. After the termination of hostilities he 
was appointed by Governor Parsons, the Pro- 
visional Governor of. Alabama, under President 
Johnson's plan of reconstruction, member of the 
Common Council, and for a short period became 
ex officio Mayor of Mobile. In 1871 he was 
elected President of the Board of Health of 
Mobile, and has been re-elected to that office 
annually ever since. In 1872 the Board of 
Health stamped out the beginning of an epi- 
demic of small-pox. In 1874 the disease 
appeared again early in the spring, and in con- 
sequence of the inefficiency of the irregularly 
organized Board of Health, who had, under 
Republican administration, superseded the 
former Board of Health, it became, late in the 
fall, epidemic throughout the city. The citi- 
zens rose in indignation against the incompetent 
management of the public hygiene, and com- 
pelled the mayor to reinstate the Board of 
Health, with Dr. Ketchum as President. The 
Board at once appointed Dr. Cochran health 
officer, and such energetic steps were immedi- 
ately taken that the disease, although at its 
height and in a season most favorable for its 
propagation, was at once checked, and in an 
incredibly short time was completely overcome. 
Since that time there has been no trouble with 
small-pox in Mobile. In 1874, as President of 
the Medical Association of the State of Ala- 
bama, he delivered an address, at the annual 
meeting held at Selma, on the sanitary needs of 
the people of the State, and the related obliga- 
tions of the medical profession, in which he 
says : 

"In the great objects which sanitary science 
proposes to itself, in the immense amelioration 
which it proffers to the physical, social, and in- 
cidentally to the moral and intellectual condi- 
tion of a large majority of our fellow-creatures, 



it transcends in importance all other sciences, 
and the true and intelligent people themselves 
will soon be taught by its beneficent operations, 
that it not only develops the full scope of the 
true and humane purposes and destiny of the 
medical profession, but that it embodies the 
spirit and fulfils the intentions of practical 
Christianity itself. 2d. It has ever been claimed 
for the profession of medicine that it was a 
humane science, and that its professors were 
true philanthropists ; would - we maintain that 
claim, and shout it from the hill-tops in voices 
of thunder, and ring changes on it on the mar- 
ket-places that all the people might recognize 
the validity of the assertion and vindicate the 
justice of the claim, then, here in the fruitful 
field of sanitary science, let our workers go forth 
and reap the reward of well-directed and intelli- 
gent labor. The investigators in other depart- 
ments of science, encouraged by the plaudits of 
nations, and strengthened by the unsparing ex- 
penditure from the public treasury, have con- 
sumed time, lives, and untold treasure in the 
search for the open sea of the north pole ; have 
written folios upon the habits and history of 
insect life; have employed the printing presses 
for days and months on the pages devoted to 
the Invertebrata ; have searched the caves of the 
deep ocean for their curious denizens and varied 
fish ; the forest glades for their crawling and 
poisonous serpents, and even the blue ether 
for its winged inhabitants ; have even gone 
beyond animate nature and illustrated in their 
thousand varying tints and colors the trees 
and shrubs and grasses of the forests and the 
plain. What is our work in comparison with 
theirs? Do they not all sink immeasurably in 
the contrast ? Theirs the dream of the enthu- 
siast, the speculations of the scientist, the fancy 
of the artist. Ours to solve the great problem 
of life and investigate the mysterious wonders 
of the master-piece of the great creative Archi- 
tect ! It is of man that we would write our 
folios — of his increase in physical power, the 
perfection of his intellectual greatness, the im- 
provement in his social, moral, and personal 
happiness, that we would illustrate our editions. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



33i 



We would recognize the deadly enemies to his 
peace, his comfort, and, indeed, to his very ex- 
istence ; and, from the knowledge thus acquired, 
would erect barriers against their approach, and 
save him harmless from their attacks." 

At a meeting of the State Medical Association 
at Mobile in 1875, Dr. Ketchum read a paper 
on the value of health to the State, which 
attracted considerable attention among the med- 
ical profession. This paper, enlarged and elab- 
orated, was published in 1878 in pamphlet form, 
and gave great impetus to the movement in 
favor of improved public hygiene, and assisted 
materially in the subsequent passage by the 
Legislature of the bill to carry out the provisions 
of the Health Act in Alabama. 

In July of the same year, Dr. Ketchum took 
his first vacation since the war : his health had 
become considerably impaired by his unremitting 
application to his professional duties, and rest 
was imperatively demanded. During his absence 
from Mobile, the yellow fever crept into the 
city from New Orleans, and he returned without 
an hour's delay to fight his old enemy once 
more. The precautions there taken, however, 
were so complete, and the treatment so success- 
ful, that it was almost entirely confined to the 
northern section of the city, and not more than 
seventy-eight deaths occurred out of 302 cases. 
Dr. Ketchum has been most energetic in his 
endeavors to obtain for Mobile an ample supply 
of good water, but his efforts to establish water- 
works were frustrated by the want of co-opera- 
tion on the part of the Republican government, 
which then had control of the municipal affairs 
of the city. He expended large sums — nearly 
$20,000 — in purchasing the land (over 1,300 
acres), making the necessary surveys, consulting 
the most eminent civil engineers, and other neces- 
sary expenses to carry out his plans ; but was 
prevented from bringing them to a successful 
issue for want of adequate support. It is prob- 
able, however, that in the near future his public- 
spirited action may bear fruit, and the land be 
made available for the purpose intended. He 
has always shown a deep interest in everything 
that has tended towards the advancement of the 



public interests of the State, and his services in 
the field of sanitary science have proved of the 
utmost value to both the city of Mobile and the 
State at large. He assisted materially both with 
voice and pen in securing the passage of the 
Public Health Act and the act to regulate the 
practice of medicine through the Legislature. 
He took an active part in the organization of 
the Northwestern Railroad from Mobile to 
Helena. He was a member of the Board of 
Trade and Board of Control. He is a Medical 
Examiner to the Alabama Gold Life Insurance 
Company, and held the same position in the 
Alabama Life Assurance Company, the first 
company of the kind established in Alabama, 
and in the Grangers' Life Insurance Company, 
both of which corporations have since discon- 
tinued business. He is a member of the Med- 
ical Association of the State of Alabama, and 
of the Mobile Medical Society, of which he was 
President in 1866. 

As Professor of the Theory and Practice of 
Medicine in the Medical College of Alabama, 
Dr. Ketchum' s lectures to the students deserve 
notice for the comprehensiveness of their design 
and the elegance of their diction. We extract 
the following as a fair specimen : 

" There is yet another view that I would fain 
impress upon you — in importance, scarcely sec- 
ond to the acquisition of a due store of medical 
knowledge and skill — a consideration which 
must needs shape your destiny and impress your 
future life in all its phases of being. It is the 
cultivation of that spirit and feeling which alone 
harmonizes with the objects, interests and true 
aims of the science of medicine — rthat spirit which 
should be the very soul of his profession to the 
true physician, because it is the essence of his 
humane calling, and elevates his occupation 
immeasurably above a selfish trade, or a mere 
mercenary avocation, and makes the divorce, 
between medicine as a mercenary motive and 
medicine as a humane science, absolute — a spirit 
of lofty purpose and earnest thought for our 
fellow-man — a spirit involving the idea of a 
higher duty than mere success as a practitioner 
of medicine — a spirit to inspire the profession 



332 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



with a sacred and God-like attribute, destined to 
make mankind more free from suffering, and 
render them more reverent and noble — a spirit 
that forbids the physician to traffic in sufferings 
and sorrows, in tears and sighs, as contrary to 
the genius of medicine, at variance with its 
humanities, and making utter discord with its 
purer and loftier harmonies. That true profes- 
sional spirit which looks beyond selfish aims and 
personal profit to the respectability, honor, 
dignity and humanity of a calling. Success 
achieved without the purifying influence of this 
spirit (and separated from a mere selfish pursuit) 
is but a 'fruitless crown upon your head,' and 
' a barren ;c :ptre in your grasp. ' Should wealth, 
with its ingots and cornucopias of glittering 
coins, dazzle you with its apparent splendor, 
and you enter upon the mad pursuit of it with a 
grovelling and selfish aim, you will find it an 
endless circuit and an interminable chase, with 
an appetite that grows by what it feeds on ; a 
hope constantly deferred ; a feverish restlessness 
of the spirit incessantly aggravated; a false 
mirage of the desert, which leaves the deluded 
traveller to die of the very thirst it has stimulated 
with fleeting prospects of supply, and in the end 
the conviction will come that there lurks in the 
lust of riches, thus pursued, the radical germ of 
its own disappointment. But when sought as a 
means merely to the fulfilment of the varied and 
beneficent uses contemplated in that spirit 
which should actuate the devotee of a grand and 
humane science, then, indeed, whilst it stimu- 
lates the growth of nobier feelings, whilst it cul- 
tivates and refines our comforts, improves our 
physical being, it also enables us to blend the 
good of our kind with our own, and enlarge the 
boundaries of our science. 

" See how the devotee, who dedicates himself 
to the worship of power — with its strong arms, 
its dread thunderbolts, and its purple vestments 
— encounters the same hopeless hunt after a 
faithless divinity, the same delirious infatuation, 
with the same unsatisfying results. 

"In his blind idolatry of self, his course is 
marked by the images of plundered states, of 
assassinated armies, of misgoverned and suffering 



millions, and around his pathway is heard the 
cries of an injured country appealing to an out- 
raged God. Look at the fate of that gigantic 
impersonation of power, whose victorious armies 
swept like a fiery torrent over Europe less than 
a century ago. From the siege of Toulon to 
the fatal field of Waterloo, the main principle 
of his conduct was the selfish promotion of his 
own aggrandizement. Power, for its absolute 
subjugation of the will of others, for its wide 
possessions and martial pomp and glittering in- 
signia — this was the constant and debasing ob- 
ject of his pursuit. 

" ' Whole kingdoms fell 
To sate his love of power.' 

" Towns and cities of Europe made bloody 
charnel chambers through which his frenzied 
appetite for personal glory followed the grim 
and treacherous spectre of universal dominion 
and unlimited power. See him with crowns 
upon his head, sceptres in his hands, kings for 
his vassals, and the earth for his footstool — the 
foremost man of all the world, panoplied o'er 
with power. Then look at him yonder ! a poor, 
wretched, disappointed man, stripped of title, 
power, country, child, wife — everything, but the 
gnawing and consuming fires of ambition, and 
the undying lust of power still rankling in his 
heart. Well might the words of the great Eng- 
lish Dramatist be put in his mouth : 

" ' I have lived long enough ; my way of life 
Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf; 
And that which should accompany old age, 
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, 
I must not look to have : but in their stead, 
•Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honor breath, 
Which the poor heart would fain deny, but dare not.' 

"Such is a picture of the fatal issues of the 
abuse of power sought only for its purposes of 
self-aggrandizement. Look now upon another 
picture — power achieved for the nobler ends 
of right and humanity — power sought in the 
spirit, which regards it only as the means to the 
fulfilment of the varied and beneficent uses 
which by the force of an inflexible and beautiful 
law, contributes to the happiness of others, while 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



333 



it secures that of the possessor. A century ago 
there was an enemy of the human race that 
swept through the communities of men and na- 
tions of people as a destroying angel, sparing 
no sex, no age, no condition — the king on his 
throne — the peasant in his cottage — the artisan 
at his work-bench, and the haughty savage in 
his native wilds — all fell before his dreadful 
touch. The puny defences of man opposed no 
barrier to its dread progress, and armies melted 
away in the presence of this terrible foe. The 
victims of this scourge became ere the lapse of 
many days a mass of putrefying and disgusting 
humanity, and those who escaped death at his 
hands bore upon their scarred and seamed faces 
the evidence of the terrible ordeal through which 
they had passed. Its name was a terror — its 
dread approach the signal for universal flight. 
Whence came the power to stay this fell de- 
stroyer's course? Who was bold enough to 
oppose this tyrant whose path was marked by 
death, desolation and despair? A surgeon's 
apprentice in the county of Gloucester, Eng- 
land, in 1798, gave to the world that master- 
piece of medical induction — Vaccination ; and 
when he announced to a doubting world the 
proven facts from the idea that he had received 
from the milkers of Gloucester, Edward Jenner 
was from that moment famous. Small-pox, the 
most loathsome and deadly foe of mankind, was 
robbed of half its terrors, and medical science 
closed one of the grandest yet gloomiest outlets 
to human life. The mighty warrior with his 
armed followers swept over Europe, and left a 
track of smoking ruins and hetacombs of dead 
slain. His terrible career was ended by oppos 
ing hosts — the concentrated power of combined 
nations, the expenditure of millions of treasure, 
and the sacrifice of thousands of valuable lives. 
The dread pestilence, with march more silent, 
yet not less destructive, counting its miserable 
victims by thousands, was stayed in its murder- 
ous assaults by the cool courage, and the power 
that knowledge gives, of a single physician, 
armed with his tiny lancet. Its polished point 
touched with a lymph-like fluid drop kept the 
hosts' of this destroyer at bay. He touched the 



men and women of his nation with his talismanic 
wand of power, and the demon of destruction 
was stayed in its destroying course. He took 
the smiling babe in its mother's anxious em- 
brace, and the little mark he left upon its arm 
was a sign of its safety — the seal of a covenant 
for its protection against the loathsome enemy 
of its race. The power that cost no lives, and 
expended no countless treasure — the power to 
save — the power sought in the peaceful channels 
of scientific investigation for the best interest of 
humanity — the power that has called forth, and 
will ever claim, the deepest homage the hearts 
of nations impulsively renders to illustrious 
worth and true benefactors, is here contrasted 
with that power which had a throne erected 
upon the ruins of demolished cities, impover- 
ished provinces, countless hosts of dead warriors, 
and cemented with the heart's blood of his coun- 
trymen — a power sprung from inordinate and 
reckless ambition, stimulated by the visions of a 
towering and comprehensive genius stretched 
beyond the limits of his own country, to the 
achievements of a world-wide domination, a 
colossal despotism, under the shade of whose 
vast and upas-like foliage the nations would have 
shrunk into abject slaves of his authority, and 
passive instruments of his selfish caprice. AVhen 
Napoleon's great name shall be lost in the vortex 
of revolution, or remembered only as a bold and 
reckless destroyer, Edward Jenner will be spoken 
of by posterity reverently, as the scientific sa- 
viour and benefactor. Should Fame, with its 
deathless scroll, attract your eye and tempt your 
pursuit, as she points to her temple that shines 
afar, go seek an entrance there, and be the first 
to do homage at her shrine. But rest assured 
that unless the credentials that you present for 
admission have been procured by an undeviating 
adherence to the requirements of the impulses 
and suggestions of the true professional spirit, 
your seat therein will be an insecure one indeed. 
Merited oblivion will soon obscure your dim 
light, and proclaim the counterfeit claim that 
you have presented. There is indeed much in 
this grand profession to excite the ambition of 
those who consecrate their energies to the acqui ■ 



334 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



sition of Fame, and who, actuated by worthier 
impulses, feel that the honor of men and a death- 
less name is a nobler guerdon than ever increas- 
ing wealth. For 

" ' There is a blameless love of Fame, springing from a 

desire of justice : 
When a man hath fealty won and fairly claimed his 

honors ; 
And then Fame comefh as encouragement, to the inward 

consciousness of merit ; 
Gladdening by the kindliness and thanks wherewithal 

his labours were rewarded.' 

" See Paulus with his glittering knife laying the 
foundation-stone of operative surgery — Paracel- 
sus intent on the crucible, from which he 
evolved his dogmas. Look at Versalius, the 
first dissector of the human body, in the dim 
light of his solitary lamp, in his lonely chamber, 
the cadaver on the table, the knife in his hand, 
his eye on the crucifix, prying into the mysteri- 
ous secrets of the human form, and building up 
the science of anatomy upon a foundation of 
facts, with the thundering menaces of the terri- 
ble Inquisition ever and anon startling him amid 
his midnight labors. This sublime spectacle 
illustrates the holy ardor, the nobility, the 
heroic courage of the profession in his age', and 
in all ages. In the path of investigation were 
toil and dishonor and death, but it was the road 
of life for all the race of man. On his vision 
shone the glorious light of coming triumph in 
medicine — the disenthralment of that science 
which should save the race. He died a martyr 
to his zeal, but his work and name survived. 
Witness Pinel after years of persistent toil and 
persuasion, and countless refusals, finally allowed 
to go on his great mission of philanthropy to 
the Bicetre in Paris — the prison, not the hospi- 
tal, for the insane, that menagerie of human 
wild beasts more savage from the effects of harsh 
and misdirected treatment than the beasts of the 
forest — the fettered victims of public ignorance. 
See him enter alone and unprotected, his coun- 
tenance beaming with love and sympathy, fear 
forgotten in his divine errand— see him strike 
off the shackles and lift up the poor and maimed 
and forsaken wretches — see the fires of madness 



and revenge die away in their eyes as they gaze 
into his. Here is a scene for the painter, a 
theme for the poet, a lesson for the Christian ! 

"See Harvey as he still wonders over the 
curious engine of the circulation of the blood. 
Willis unrolling the skull case, and analyzing the 
contents of the busy workshop of the brain. 
Haller busy adding physics to physic. Boerhaave 
teaching and unravelling the wonders of scien- 
tific chemistry. Laennie, with his stethoscope, 
pronouncing his diagnosis on his original phys- 
ical basis, and Jenner, with his mission of benefi- 
cence to man, working out the problem which 
was to furnish one of the greatest earthly boons 
ever vouchsafed to humanity. But enough, the 
long line passes on in order and due succession. 

" ' Tongues of our dead, not lost 
But speaking from Death's post 
Like fiery tongues at Pentecost.' 

" Such have won Fame, not by accident, but 
that they possessed the rare frame and constitu- 
tion of mind united with thoughtful steadfast- 
ness of purpose which enabled them each to 
work out his contribution to the pages of medi- 
cal history. 'Tis true they achieved fame, but 
at what price? — the best part of life perhaps con- 
sumed in toil ; chill penury may have been long 
endured ; the sweet influences of home and the 
delights of social life sacrificed in the struggle; 
all circumstances made to yield and contribute 
to the gratification of a mighty master passion. 
That gratification can be but brief, and though 
it may have been won amid toils and reproaches, 
checks and disappointments, perhaps death 
claimed the overworked enthusiast in the midst 
of his labors, and fame came only to cover as 
with a monument their buried bodies. 

" 'Can storied urn, or animated bust 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 

Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? ' 

" Posthumous fame is indeed at best but an 
empty honor, yet to live in story, to live in song, 
to live in the memory of ages yet unborn, and for 
blessings long since bestowed claim the thanks of 
millions yet to be, has nerved the martyr at the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



SSS 



stake, has given power to the warrior on the 
battle-field, has sustained the midnight toiler as 
he robbed weary nature of her required rest. 
The desire of fame, the longing for the appro- 
bation of the wise and good, the wish to be 
singled out and placed above the great mass of 
our fellow-creatures, is a perfectly natural feeling 
and of kin to immortality — the feeling has been 
the operative cause of the noblest exertions of 
human genius, and incited the great of former 
days to the heroic deeds and efforts which still 
live on the pages of history, and it will continue 
to enkindle from their ashes fires which shall 
warm, cherish, and enlighten human society. 
Yet many who have become distinguished in 
medicine did not pursue fame as the grand 
object of their activities — no praise of men, no 
earthly trophies, no laurel crowns evoked their 
energies, but they toiled on and on from that 
instinctive benevolence of the human heart of 
which the medical profession is the especial ex- 
ponent — representing, as it does, beyond all 
others as a class, the power of this sentiment 
than which none is more noble in human nature. 
Other men do good upon occasions — the physi- 
cian habitually, and by the very import of his 
calling — other men relieve the destitute and the 
suffering by indirection, giving their substance 
for the erection of hospitals and asylums, dis- 
tributing their alms by proxy — the physician in 
his own person gives the sweat of his brow and 
the labor of his hands, the anxiety of his soul, 
and the toil of his intellect. His benevolent 
instinct, the outgrowth of his professional spirit, 
and the ethical code which gives formal expres- 
sion to the purest impulses of our common nature 
calls upon him to bestow without limit his unre- 
quited services whenever suffering humanity calls. 

" The late Sir James Simpson, in an address at 
the University of Edinburgh some years ago, 
stated that it was the custom in some ancient 
continental universities to present the graduate 
on the day he received his doctorship with a 
ring, a barette, an open and a sealed bock — 
these symbols very beautifully give us an ideal 
of the medical character, a picture of the medi- 



cal life. The ring represented the marriage of 
the physician to medical science — a bride in- 
deed fit for the proudest in the land, a bride 
whose beauty and grace will more and more un- 
fold with each passing year, and hold a Icyal 
heart in willing bonds. A bride worthy the 
purest love and noblest consecration — surely we 
may claim for this bride a celestial origin, a 
divine lineage, and hence is worthy a noble- 
man's espousal. Gentlemen, take this divinity 
as yours, accept this bride. She offers virtue, 
truth, and wisdom ; philanthropy and gratitude 
wait upon her, and she claims in her own right 
the treasures of knowledge, the titles to high 
honor, the bestowal of riches. A barette was 
also given the graduate, signifying that he was 
now a priest and called to the exercise of 
priestly functions. Your profession is based on 
the loftiest sentiments and feelings of a noble 
and dignified nature — these mingle with and per- 
vade the currents of your professional thoughts, 
and such lofty sentiments directed to lofty ends 
and aims, and habitually indulged in, moulds the 
whole soul and purpose into its own nature and 
exerts its elevating and ennobling influence upon 
the entire character. Under such influences he 
will find himself invested with a moral dignity 
and self-respect, as with a robe of spotless ermine, 
which will ever caution him to sedulously avoid 
every soiling contact. The cultivation of these 
feelings and their elevating influence on his 
inner self alone will fit him for the duties and 
responsibilities that his position will force upon 
him. He is placed in relation on one hand with 
medicine, on the other with the human victims 
of accident or disease; he is the priest to cleanse, 
to purify, to heal ; he is the prophet, knowing 
both the nature and the needs of the sufferer, 
and the spirit and the power of the science 
which brings relief. Abernethy once said to 
his surgical class : 

" 'I place before you the most enviable power 
of being extensively useful to your fellow-crea- 
tures. You will be able to confer that which 
sick kings would proudly purchase with their 
diadems, which wealth cannot command nor 
state nor rank bestow — to alleviate or remove 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



disease, the most insupportable of human afflic- 
tions, and thereby give health, the most valuable 
of human blessings.' 

"Another great man though not of our pro- 
fession — but greater, perhaps, than Abernethy, 
Carlyle — says : The profession of the human 
healer is naturally a sacred one, and connected 
with the highest priesthood, or rather in itself 
is the outcome and acme of all priesthood and 
divine conquests here below.' 

"The profession that gives their lives to hu- 
mane and beneficent objects — that in their daily 
work benefits man's highest estate, and manifests 
the glory of God in healing the sick and bring- 
ing comfort to the afflicted — should endeavor to 
impress the communities in which they live and 
'labor that they do indeed hold a divine commis- 
sion for the performance of a great and respon- 
sble duty; that they are a kind of priesthood 
set apart, and anointed for a peculiar and sacred 
function to which belongs in a considerable de- 
gree the issues of happiness and misery of life 
and death ; and in which unfaithfulness, either 
in promise or performance, is an offence not 
against man only but the Most High. The 
other presents received by the graduate were an 
open and a closed book. The one signifying 
the knowledge already obtained, and the other 
that which he should diligently seek. The open 
book represents but the vestibule of the grand 
temple of medical science. The closed book is 
the inner sanctuary with all its splendors to be 
revealed. Its lofty columns, its fretted dome, 
its majestic choirs, its holy and sacred notes of 
music lifting the soul up in worship and attun- 
ing it to sweetest harmony ! Stand not idle with 
that closed book vastly larger than the one you 
have opened and studied. Linger not on the 
threshold when the doors of the grand temple 
only wait to be opened by your own hand. The 
golden ingots of wealth are within, the purple 
vestments of poivci' are there, the clarion voice 
of fame calls aloud for your entrance, and the 
orient pearls and priceless jewels of knowledge 
lie in profusion within your reach. Delay not. 
Hopes bright as day envelop you as with a man- 
tle of glorious prophecy ! Open the closed book 



and see to it that the world is better for your 
living in it, that you are a proud and worthy 
groom to the peerless bride that you have this 
night espoused, that you are faithful priests in 
the temple of our noble science. And the peo- 
ple will rise up and call you blessed." 

Dr. Ketchum has the largest and most respon- 
sible practice in Mobile, and stands in the very 
first rank among the medical profession in Ala- 
bama, among whom he is exceedingly popular. 
From the very commencement of his career he 
has conducted a large practice, and of late years 
he has had more than most men could possibly 
attend to. As a general practitioner he has no 
superior, and in consultation does the largest 
practice in Mobile. His use of quinine in the 
earlier stages of yellow fever has proved the most 
successful treatment of that disease the South has 
ever seen. He has a remarkably hopeful dis- 
position, and his power of infusing hope into the 
most desponding patient is an important element 
in their chances of recovery. 

Of untiring industry, systematic and method- 
ical in the apportionment of his time, he is able 
to accomplish an amount of work which to one 
less systematic would be an impossibility. Every 
hour employed to its utmost capacity, yet never 
in a hurry, he finds time in spite of his immense 
practice to lecture at the college, attend meet- 
ings of the various medical societies, and take 
an active part in everything looking to the ad- 
vancement of the State and the interests of its 
people. Possessing fine judgment, remarkably 
quick perception, and a ready command of re- 
sources equal to any emergency ; great firmness 
and decision of character, with excellent admin- 
istrative ability ; he seems to have been intended 
by nature for a leader of men, and had he not 
adopted the medical profession would have com- 
manded the highest offices in the gift of the 
people. In addition to oratorical powers of the 
highest orders, and an inexhaustible command 
of language, he possesses a personal magnetism 
that stirs an audience to the utmost enthusiasm 
while commanding the closest attention. His 
courteous and attractive manners, high char- 
acter, and genial disposition have made him a 




^~e^£l 






' V^ 



~? 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



337 




magh. 



great favorite in social circles, and won him the 
high regard of all who have the privilege of 
knowing his sterling worth. He married, No- 
vember 23d, 1S48, Susan Burton, daughter of 
Dr. John Burton, of Philadelphia, a member of 
an old Quaker family originally from Delaware. 
He has two children, both girls. 



HON. OSBORNE A. LOCHRANE. 

Georgia. 

fSBORNE A. LOCHRANE, late Chief- 
Justice of Georgia, was born in Ireland 
on the 22d day of August, 1829, and 
was the second son of Dr. Edward 
Lochrane, of Middleton, County Ar- 
Dr. Lochrane was a man learned in 
the profession of medicine, loved by all classes 
for his kindness of heart, and his society sought 
by the highest on account of his intellectual 
culture and extensive literary acquirements. He 
was as fond as he was full of anecdote, the life 
of every company in which his genial humor 
was displayed. His opinions, too, were widely 
respected on account of his reading and infor- 
mation. His brother, Ferdinand Lochrane, 
Esq., T- P-> is manager of the Ulster Bank of 
Ireland, city of Dublin, a man of fortune and 
position. 

The subject of this sketch himself had, at a 
very early period, the advantages of a finished 
education. He was a good classical scholar, 
had read largely works of poetry and romance, 
and was full of information from the best 
authors, before he came to this country. 

Why young Lochrane should have determined 
to seek his fortunes in a foreign land was a 
question of some perplexity to such of his newly 
formed acquaintances as were ignorant of the 
class of immigrants to which he belonged. 
Those who surrounded him, a youth of eighteen 
years, when as a clerk in a drug store in Athens, 
Ga., he modestly commenced his labors on this 
continent, wondered how it came to pass that a 
young, man, evidently tenderly nurtured, exhib- 
iting the most polished address, and possessed 



of great courtesy and refinement of manner and 
bearing, should consent to become a voluntary 
exile, and to deliberately choose such a destiny, 
as he might be able, by his own unaided efforts, 
to wring from the slow admiration and the reluc- 
tant sympathy of alien strangers. Such persons 
failed to reflect that Ireland was repressed by 
the weight of a heavy hand, the line of promo- 
tion for her ambitious youth obstructed in every 
quarter, the avenues of official advancement 
and even of private fortune hedged in and cur- 
tailed by a thousand petty exactions ; and such 
persons could not, as yet, know that this humble 
drug-clerk modestly veiled behind his smiling 
face an ambition directed toward the greatest ob- 
jects, and a soul, in all its instincts and sympathies 
and aims, in exact harmony with the spirit that 
animates ambitious, free America. They readily 
perceived, from the accuracy of his diction, that 
he had scholarship; that he could talk brilliantly, 
and was already familiar with orators and poets ; 
that he had the biography of the great men of 
the world at his tongue's end ; that he was always 
dressed neatly, if not even elegantly, and bore 
about him an air of good-breeding. From all 
these circumstances it was but natural that people 
should talk about him, particularly as he went 
nowhere, mixed with nobody, was constantly 
reading or writing in the store, and in nowise 
courted the public attention, indeed seeming to 
shun all observation. 

At length it was ascertained by those who had 
now become his friends that young Lochrane 
secretly devoted the greater part of his leisure 
moments to prose and poetic writings, which 
he was accustomed to destroy as soon as com- 
pleted. A few fragments of this early work have 
been accidentally preserved, and it is not too 
much to say that, while they betray an imagina- 
tion tropical in its luxuriance, and even vicious 
because of the very virtue of richness, they yet 
bear the marks of refined taste and cultured 
thought. From the torn leaves of a little scrap- 
book before us, dated November 17th, 1847, we 
make a few extracts, with a view of showing, 
not that the subject of this sketch was endowed 
with extraordinary powers, but that young 



33§ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Lochrane from the period of his earliest man- 
hood was full of glowing fancies and of love for 
the true and beautiful, with tastes and habits 
already distinctly foreshadowed; and for the pur- 
pose of revealing how naturally, and even neces- 
sarily, the ardent and impulsive youth has 
grown into the man of fame and influence. We 
quote from a little sketch written in November, 
1847, tne theme being "A thing of Beauty is 
not blessed. ' ' After a rich embroidery of word- 
painting, sustaining throughout the same vein of 
tender half-sad fancy, he concludes with the 
following : 

"Poor Maud! she kissed me once. 'Twas 
'neath a blossomed tree whose coy and blushing 
fruits were pouting towards the amorous sun. 
Her hand was clasped in mine. My head 
leaned next her face, fanned by her hair. Her 
eyes were wet with tears. We had been talking 
of the past. The rose that breathed its perfume 
on the breeze, and whose head was lifted up in 
pride but yesterday to meet her look, now 
drooped upon its stem as if in shame, for the 
rude wind was plucking off its leaves, and so 
denuding it. A leaf was wafted to her cheek. 
Her little hand pressed the frail relic of the 
riven rose, and the tears, sifting through her 
shaking fingers, showered upon it thick as rain. 
Before her mind were passing groups of lonely 
thoughts led on by death. I saw it all; and, 
stooping, kissed the tears from off her face. Her 
lips met mine. My kisses lingered on them so 
purely soft, so softly pure, that angels sleeping 
on the damask of those cushioned lips would 
not have known I kissed them." 

This is but a fragment selected from a sketch 
sustained in the same strain, and shows the early 
bent of his imagination. 

Let it not be supposed that Judge Lochrane 
sprang into eminence by an accident. He did 
not achieve his reputation by a single exertion. 
On the contrary his growth has been constantly 
and evenly upward, and his fame added to by 
gradual successions of acts. When he came to 
Athens he but continued the line of improve- 
ment he had started in Ireland. He went on 
writing prose and poetry, not simply for amuse- 



ment, but to acquire facility of composition and 
beauty and force of expression. Not only in 
prose, but in poetry as well, did he, at this early 
age, train his thoughts to beauty of expression. 
Indeed, he was a casual contributor to the col- 
umns of the press, and, under anonymous signa- 
tures, many a little gem of fancy dropped into 
the abyss of literature to be lost, save in the way 
of making room for the development of its 
author's deeper stores of mental wealth and 
power. Criticism would shake its head, now 
sagely, perhaps severely, over these early adven- 
tures in literary fields ; but who can estimate the 
advantage their very production conferred upon 
the mind that produced them? A description 
of a mouth by the Judge, at this early age, we 
might regard too ornate and fanciful : 

" Thy mouth's a soft kiss clapped in coral, 
Where waves of music break 
In words so sweet, nor crown nor laurel 
Such thoughts of glory wake." 

Or, we might equally regard as overdrawn, the 
prose poetry to a young lady: "I'll give thee 
purple words, plucked from the branches of my 
thoughts, and press them to thy lips, to let thee 
suck the juice of love within ; " or, of the Irish 
ladies when he was making an eulogy on their 
purity: "The robe of snow the angels hung 
upon their cradles, they have borne unsoiled 
through life, and worn as ascension-robes to 
immortality: " or, in a fragment of a sketch of 
his mother: " In her sweet presence one might 
well feel God had forgotten man's disobedience, 
and we stood again on earth, face to face with 
angels." 

In referring to his exile, a subject that never 
failed to call up in his heart all its poetic fervor 
and patriotic longings, he says : 

" I'm alone, I'm alone in this wide, wide world : 
My heart it is broken, hope's banner is furled — 
No voice near to cheer me, its tones to impart 
A smile to my lips, or a joy to my heart. 

" I'm alone, I'm alone, and my thoughts ever stray 
Like white-sheeted ghosts of past pleasures away 
To the home of my sires, where music and mirth 
Make sadness, like gladness, in the land of my birth." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



339 



The parting scene from one he loved is thus 
portrayed : 

"A Sabbath night we parted. The stars were looking down, 
And the moon their, mother, watched us, 'neath her pale 

and silvery crown ; 
In that silent hour our beating hearts were far too full 

for words ; 
For a spirit's hand was pressed, dear, upon their throb- 
bing chords." 

We have selected, somewhat at random, the 
foregoing fragments, crude products of his earli- 
est attempts at composition, to show that the 
youth who landed in Athens an exile, without 
friends or name, was indeed no ordinary man, 
but carried in his breast a talisman of power. 
AVhile storing his mind with valuable informa- 
tion by assiduous study, and training his style by 
laborious composition, he was attentive to every 
detail of the business of his employer, and 
received an unexpected increase of salary as a 
recognition of his usefulness and capacity for 
labor. 

In the tide of time, the young gentlemen of 
the University of Georgia took a fancy to the 
will-informed and brilliant young Irishman, and 
his election as an honorary member of the Phi 
Kappa Society followed, as a substantial mark 
of their regard. This was followed by his being 
selected the anniversary orator of a Temperance 
Society, on which occasion he exhibited won- 
derful talents for so young a man. In that 
speech his word-painting of the goddess of Tem- 
perance was giving almost coloring to thoughts, 
so full of startling beauty was the picture. He 
also drew a painting of the drunkard's death- 
bed ; the altar of intemperance ; the young 
man's rise and fall, and in a word the whole 
speech was gemmed with beauties. In the 
audience sat Judge Lumpkin, then Chief-Justice 
of the State — himself the greatest orator within 
its borders — and his congratulations were ex- 
pressed with warmth and even enthusiasm. It 
was in consequence of the influence and coun- 
sels of Judge Lumpkin that Mr. Lochrane was 
induced to study law, and subsequently to obtain 
admittance to the Bar, which he did in Watkins- 
ville, Ga., at the February term, 1S50, of the 



Superior Court. In the next month, March, 
1850, he went to Savannah, and made a speech 
on St. Patrick's day. The audience crowded 
the theatre when he spoke ; and his success was 
attested by the repeated cheers that rang 
through the hall. The Irish women wanted to 
see the youth who had so painted the misfor 
tunes and glories of his country, and as h ; 
threaded his way through the crowding throng, 
many a smile and hand-shaking and some kisses 
were given him. 

From this hour young Lochrane began to be 
recognized as the representative Irish orator of 
the State. Coming to Macon to practise law, 
he was again the orator for his countrymen, and 
again covered himself with newer and fresher 
laurels. It was in Macon, after his successful 
exhibitions of power as an orator, that he began 
in earnest the labors of his profession. At the 
outset of his career he won the favorable opin- 
ion of the Bar and the people as a jury advocate. 
But Lochrane was ambitious. What would have 
been to very many other young men a success, 
to him was only a stepping-stone. He began to 
spread his practice; and being invited to address 
his countrymen in Atlanta, he added strength to 
his reputation and won additional plaudits. He 
was now known as a rising man. While Chief- 
Justice Lumpkin still sat upon the Bench of the 
Supreme Court, his young student came before 
him, at Decatur for the first time as an advo- 
cate. The case in the argument of which he 
was employed involved the purity of the jury- 
box, and Lochrane, after presenting the case 
upon the law and facts, finally closed with a 
tribute to the trial by jury in periods remarkable 
for beauty, particularly as to the impartiality 
which was to characterize the juror's mind, and 
in tracing the effect of an expressed opinion 
upon the judgment it influenced. The case was 
reversed and the party finally acquitted. 

Events apparently insignificant lead on the 
crises of history, and the turning-point in the 
life of the subject of this sketch may be traced 
to a circumstance in itself trivial. There came 
before the bar of the Macon court one day a 
poor woman, worn out into shreds of life, sob- 



340 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



bing, and in rags. Young Lochrane was ap- 
pointed to defend her. The charge was va- 
grancy. In a hurried consultation, in a few 
pitiful sentences, the wretched woman told him 
the tale of her degradation. It was an old, old 
story; but as the words, stinted and woe-begone, 
came from her tear-dazed heart, Lochrane re- 
solved to fight for her liberty. Her weakness 
became to him strength. The cold isolation of 
her position inflamed and kindled him, and 
brought out burning words upon his lips. The 
evidence was conclusive of her guilt. She was 
a vagrant — a vagabond in the earth. The 
mayor and chief marshal of the city, who were 
sworn as witnesses, established it. Nothing ap- 
parently was left to be done but to write the 
verdict, when Mr. Lochrane announced that he 
proposed to argue the case. At the announce- 
ment the prosecuting attorney but ill disguised 
a sneer, as he quickly responded in the custom- 
ary set phrase that he "would not insult the 
intelligence of the jury by uttering a word." 
When Mr. Lochrane rose, his first words startled 
jury and bystanders, and went far to change 
the "court-house sentiment." "This woman," 
said he, in slow, repressed words, "is the victim 
of crime — not its perpetrator." He paused a 
moment, while the great meaning embodied in 
the words used seemed to settle down in awe on 
the faces of the jurors, and added: " It was you, 
jurors, and men like you, that committed the 
offence with which she stands charged. Strong, 
brutal men have been assiduously sowing seeds 
in the yawning furrows of her heart, and here 
she comes back to you with the inevitable har- 
vest of vagabondism held out to you in her 
shrunken fingers." Thus, changing the front 
of the entire case, he adroitly directed the whole 
accusation against her betrayer. Interweaving 
argumentatively and by way of illustration her 
heart-history into his speech, he went on and 
en, until the words "soiled dove" were uttered 
behind him. He instantly turned and replied : 
"Yes ! Her innocence has been soiled by your 
lusts. You took her from her father's fireside ; 
you tore her from a mother's caresses ; you made 
her homeless, for you shut a father's door upon 



her, and dragged her, sick with shame and 
trembling with horror of herself and you, from 
the shelterings of a mother's prayers and bless- 
ings. You have turned her out as a storm- 
beaten dove, with no home for its broken wing ; 
and to add shame to your treachery, you would 
brand felon on her brow, and hide your own dis- 
grace within the walls of a penitentiary ! " It 
is useless to add, the jury acquitted her without 
leaving the box, and from the powerfully awak- 
ened sympathies of the audience a sum of money 
was raised on the spot to furnish her with cloth- 
ing, and to supply her present wants. 

We recall also the case of Conally, charged 
with the murder of his wife. It was a fearful 
case. He was an Irishman. His wife was found 
in the room, killed by a blow from a hatchet. 
Her infant child climbed out of its cradle to its 
mother's breast, and when discovered was 
stained and wet with its mother's blood. So 
fierce was the fury of his countrymen that they 
added two distinguished lawyers to the prosecu- 
tion, and his oldest friends refused him, during 
the trial, recognition or the smallest favor. 
Public opinion carried its prejudice into the 
court-room, arraigning every bystander into an 
enemy. When Mr. Lochrane stood up to speak 
for him, the jury turned away their heads. His 
argument was well put and pointed, but the 
points only touched the jury like icicles. The 
case seemed hopeless. The evening shadows 
were creeping down from the walls, and igno- 
minious death seemed everywhere to threaten 
the accused Conally. Suddenly, as in a gust 
of inspiration, lifting him above the occasion, 
he turned to the heavens and painted the mother 
looking down upon the scenes of the trial, and 
with an invocation to her spirit brought her 
down and made her plead for the life of her 
husband. He turned and with her spirit re- 
buked the prejudices around him. He made 
her tell the tale of the killing, and, with uplifted 
hands, warn the jury against the sympathy all 
felt for her. He caused her voice to speak im- 
ploringly for the life of the husband ; of his 
former kindness ; of his trials and cares of life ; 
of the suddenness of his passion ; and begged 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



34i 



piteously for his life as the father of her child. 
No words could do this appeal justice. It did 
not acquit Conally, but it saved his life. 

We have referred to these instances among 
many as best illustrating Judge Lochrane's early 
and peculiar powers as an advocate. He was 
not considered, as a lawyer, learned in the law, 
nor did he for some time enjoy a lucrative prac- 
tice. At the head of the criminal lawyers in his 
circuit, he stood confessedly among the very 
first rank. His devotion to his clients was pro- 
verbial. To eloquent advocacy he joined un- 
questioned tact. When the case was slipping 
away from him, a>nd the evidence came hottest 
and heaviest, he wore a smile not only of confi- 
dence, but almost of triumph. With the quick- 
ness to draw out every shadow in the case 
favorable to his client, yet all could perceive 
the constant touches of sympathy he would in- 
terweave with the facts, arid those who knew 
him felt that out of these straggling links, hang- 
ing through the mass of testimony, he would 
construct and coil a chain about the jury hard 
to break in its sympathetic influence. His 
greatest strength lay in his changing the front 
of a case, so as to change the current when it 
ran against him, and when he had broken or 
turned the sharpest points of the testimony, he 
would melt away the balance in the heat of hu- 
man sympathy; for he could paint anguish until 
tears involuntarily dimmed the eye, if not the 
judgment, as, for instance, in the case of Revel, 
when he argued the motion for a new trial, and 
one of the prosecuting attorneys shed tears over 
his recital of the anguish and pain of an impris- 
onment under sentence of death. 

But we have said enough illustrative of the 
early history of Judge Lochrane as a criminal 
advocate. Just as the war opened the first judge 
appointed under the Confederate authority was 
Lochrane. On the Bench he developed great 
administrative ability. He was prompt, quick 
and able, his judgments were gracefully deliv- 
ered, and his courtesy to the Bar was uniform 
and liberal. He was never impatient, and with- 
out much effort always maintained the highest 
discipline of decorum. But under the veil of 



his amiability he always wore the most inflexible 
purpose. At Twiggs' court, for instance, when 
he made his first riding, he called a case in 
which one of the counsel employed was openly 
inimical to his election as judge. The announce- 
ment made by the attorneys engaged was in the 
following words: "If your Honor please, we 
have agreed to take that case to the Supreme 
Court by consent." Judge Lochrane felt that 
this form of announcement was a blow insidi- 
ously dealt at his own person; that it was, in 
effect, to say, " We do not care for your opin- 
ion ; we will goat once to the higher court." 
Without a moment's hesitation he replied : 
" Then, gentlemen, do I understand that you 
desire me to enter on this docket, 'Carried to 
the Supreme Court by consent, counsel declin- 
ing to argue it here ' ? " On receiving an affirma- 
tive response, he took his pen and wrote the 
entry, reading it aloud : " Dismissed for want 
of prosecution." The attorneys looked un- 
speakably astounded, but Judge Lochrane went 
on with the business of the session as if nothing 
had occurred. As an instance of Judge Loch- 
rane's independence on the Bench, we might 
add that he held the scales of justice during the 
shock of civil war, and maintained the dignity 
of his position at a time when the state of the 
country rendered the administration of civil law 
a work of great difficulty and danger. He 
would carry no military pass from provost mar- 
shals, permitting him to go about, as was re- 
quired from all citizens within conscript age 
and not in the military or naval service of the 
Southern Confederacy. This led to his arrest 
by a conscript officer at Columbus, Ga., but he 
exhibited his commission under the great seal 
of the State, and was discharged. Leaving on 
the cars for one of his courts, he was again 
threatened with arrest, when he turned the 
tables by telling the arresting officer that if he 
endeavored further to oppose him, he would 
summon a posse of citizens and send the officer 
and his guard to jail. He was, from principle, 
warmly with the South in the struggle, but he 
would not allow the law to be trampled under 
foot. He enforced the writ of habeas corpus 



342 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



in Georgia after the writ was suspended by the 
Confederate Congress. He declared conscrip- 
tion to be unconstitutional, holding that it was 
bad policy to make a man a slave before he was 
sent off to fight for liberty. He held, when a 
British subject applied for discharge from the 
conscript acts, that he was entitled to such dis- 
charge, provided he could prove the fact, but 
the court would not recognize consular papers 
for that purpose from a government that did not 
recognize the government under which he sat, 
declaring that, as for himself, a judge holding a 
commission within the limits of the Confederacy 
and under obedience to its constitution, there 
existed no such government as England. He 
held that the declaration of intention to become 
a citizen of the United States, made under oath 
before the war, did not bind as a declaration to 
become a citizen of the Confederate States, but 
had to be proven as an intention, if such existed, 
by acts or declarations subsequent to the exist- 
ence of the Confederate government. He held 
that the ordinance of the secession convention, 
conferring citizenship of the State on every per- 
son residing in Georgia who did not file a dis- 
claimer of the citizenship conferred within sixty 
days after the passage of the ordinance, was in- 
operative in Georgia, as the State, after the 
passage of the ordinance and before the expira- 
tion of the sixty days, had herself entered into 
a new form of government, uniting with the 
Confederate States. He held that a minor, 
held a prisoner by the United States for ex- 
change of prisoners, was without the jurisdiction 
of a State court to hear his case on a writ of 
habeas corpus. He held that, under the Con- 
federate Constitution, the State of Georgia had 
the right to a writ of possession against the 
Confederate States for the recovery of State 
arms loaned to the Confederate States; and, 
learning his decision would be resisted, he tele- 
graphed Governor Brown for means to enforce 
his order. In reply, Governor Brown tele- 
graphed him that he would send a thousand 
men, if necessary, to carry his judgment into 
effect. In a certain case where persons were 
relieved from military service by putting in a 



substitute, under a law existing at the time, and 
a subsequent law extended the time for con- 
scripts, under which last law such persons fell 
upon their plea that they were discharged by 
the first contract, Judge Lochrane held that they 
were liable, as the public exigency demanded 
more men in the field (the Supreme Court, too, 
having in the meantime held conscription to be 
constitutional). "Nations," said he, "die 
fighting, never by contract." He held foreign- 
ers were not liable to conscription, but he also 
held that a foreigner, having volunteered into 
military service, could not be discharged. 

He held, where an over-zealous officer had 
induced a man to join a military organization 
(when companies were authorized to be raised 
by parties liable to conscription) by untruthful 
representations, that the man whose consent 
was thus obtained was entitled to his discharge 
on the ground of fraud, declaring that fraud 
annulled everything done under its color, and 
under no circumstances, and for no ends, no 
matter how salutary, could it be upheld. 

These instances may serve to show that 
Judge Lochrane, as a judge, was firm and 
inflexible in his opinions, and that he upheld 
justice without regard to the popularity of his 
decisions. 

Pending the session of the Legislature that 
was to pass upon the question of Judge Loch- 
rane's re-election to the Bench, a case was 
brought before him of exceeding delicacy. A 
member of the Legislature from the county of 
Pickens, Mr. Aired, was voted out of his seat 
on account of treason. He was arrested and 
confined in a military prison, when he appealed 
for his discharge on writ of habeas corpus. 
Judge Lochrane heard the case, and although 
his own election came before the same Legisla- 
ture in a few days, he in effect reversed the 
decision, by holding he was not guilty of trea- 
son, and discharging him from custody. He 
also discharged from military prison the men 
who remained in Atlanta, under the occupancy 
of General Sherman, upon the ground that thev 
had not committed treason by remaining and 
working for their bread. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



343 



After the war Judge Lochrane resigned the 
Bench, and resumed the practice of the law. 
While thus employed, at the request of the 
mayors of Macon and Atlanta, and accredited 
by both, he visited Washington, and took an 
active part in organizing civil government in 
Georgia, and in moderating the views of Presi- 
dent Johnson to the Southern people. An amus- 
ing illustration is given of his first interview with 
the President. Mr. Johnson asked him what 
was the opinion of the intelligent men of Geor- 
gia about the result in 1864, adding that it was 
impossible that they should not have foreseen 
the inevitable triumph of the government in 
suppressing the rebellion. After he concluded, 
remembering that the President had only a few 
days before declared that treason was odious and 
that traitors should be punished, Judge Loch- 
rane concluded that the matter of discussion was 
too delicate for argument, and with a smile re- 
marked, "Well, Mr. President, I don't know 
that I can better illustrate our views and feel- 
ings, than by stating to you what Sam McComb 
said to General Cook on the field before Rich- 
mond. The General was on his horse near to 
McComb, and the roar of artillery was loud and 
furious in front, when McComb, walking up to 
Cook, said : ' General, has Lincoln gone too far 
to apologize? ' ' Thus he parried the question 
raised, and a general laugh ensued in which the 
President loudly joined. Returning from Wash- 
ington, Judge Lochrane, at the request of many 
citizens, made a speech at Ralston's Hall, a 
speech remarkable for its solemn warnings, pro- 
phetic of what soon fell upon the South. The 
republication of that speech at this day would 
mark its author as a statesman. 

Judge Lochrane now launched into business, 
and swept a large share of practice. He was 
engaged in many heavy cases and won new 
laurels in the profession. He retired from the 
criminal practice, and with the experience and 
training of the Bench, took now position among 
the best civil lawyers. His kind-heartedness 
made him a champion of what was known as 
relief, and he advocated the defence of the first 
case tried after the courts were open. Crowds 



hung upon this case, for it was a vital question 
with all the citizens of the impoverished and 
war-ravished South. The judge pressed the 
question in every way possible. In fact the 
Relief laws subsequently passed were but a sum- 
mary of his pleadings in this case. Coming to 
the last point raised by him in the argument, 
viz. : that even if the jury should find for the 
plaintiff the principal they should find no inter- 
est thereon — he was reading from Thomas Jeffer- 
son's letter, as Secretary of State, to British 
Minister Hammond. At this point the pre- 
siding judge interrupted him to inquire, "What 
judge's opinion is that you are reading?" Judge 
Lochrane instantly replied, "This, sir, is not 
the opinion of a judge at all, but it is the opin- 
ion of a man with brains enough to make a 
hundred judges." 

Judge Lochrane, as a lawyer, was an original. 
He looked through cases with bold conception 
of the inner history which lay imbedded among 
the facts. He cared nothing for beaten tracks; 
but as often as necessary took new lines of 
thought and then diligently sought out among 
the authorities the law to sustain his proposi- 
tions. We recall an instance in point : He was 
in the court at Savannah, when distinguished 
counsel argued a question of injunction, to pre- 
vent the sale of cotton under levy by a United 
States Revenue Collector, for several thousand 
dollars tax claimed. The court refused the in- 
junction, and counsel abandoning the papers 
left the court and telegraphed their client to 
pay over the money, which was done. Judge 
Lochrane, knowing the parties, took the aban- 
doned papers to his room, moved an amendment 
next morning, which was granted, and an order 
to hold the money subject to the decree of the 
court, which was also granted. Having achieved 
this, he went to Washington, argued the ques- 
tion there, and recovered back the money, save 
a few hundred dollars legitimate tax due. Few 
men would have done this, for few would have 
supposed anything could be done after the 
defeat of the most distinguished counsel. But 
Lochrane has, as we have said, boldness of con- 
ception, and whilst, in common- with all other 



344 



REPRESENTATIVE MEF OF THE SOUTH. 



men, he has encountered failures, it has always 
been after a hard and costly battle. 

When the capitol was located at Atlanta Judge 
Lochrane moved thither. In the light of results 
this change of residence was well considered. 
He at once stepped to the front of a very able 
Bar, but at their request soon assumed the duties 
of Judge of the Atlanta Circuit, which position 
he held but a short time. Of his ability as 
judge of this circuit, we need only remark that 
out of sixteen cases carried to the Supreme 
Court but one was reversed. On the accession 
of Hon. John L. Hopkins to the Bench, Judge 
Lochrane retired, until called to the position of 
Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. 
In this position, the most trying for so young a 
man, he acquitted himself with great ability, his 
decisions ranking with the ablest delivered from 
that august Bench. In early life, the impression 
was made upon his friends that he had only a 
" pretty mind," but the remarkable fact in his 
career has been his exact adaptability and fitness 
for every position, however exalted or responsi- 
ble. Associate Justice Bleckley, of the Supreme 
Bench, once said of him : " Lochrane's mind is 
a dual mind, one fancy, one solid, either of 
which he can use separately at pleasure, or both 
together if he chooses to do so." In the argu- 
ment of cases'before him it was soon discovered 
that Chief Justice Lochrane brought to the 
Bench a thorough knowledge of the law. His 
familiarity with the decisions was remarkable, 
his memory furnishing him with a clear compre- 
hension of all the principles previously an- 
nounced from the Bench. He dissented but 
seldom, but his views embodied in his few dis- 
senting opinions are clearly and cogently stated. 

Judge Lochrane, after a few years of laborious 
service as Chief-Justice, resigned his position to 
return to his private practice, and daily increased 
his business and his reputation, gathering in 
heavy fees, and extending his practice until prob- 
ably few lawyers South were better known, or 
had wider reputation. He continued to labor 
earnestly in his business until appointed Gen- 
eral Counsel for the Pullman Sleeping-Car Com- 
panies, which position he now occupies. 



Having sketched briefly the career of Judge 
Lochrane in his professional character, we may 
return now, for a few minutes, to his other dis- 
tinctions. The Judge, in political life, has never 
held an office, although for many years he was a 
leading man in the Democratic ranks. His 
triumphs on the stump as a speaker have been, 
perhaps, among his best efforts. He was full 
of wit and humor, could wield anecdote with 
immense effect, and pour forth eloquent vindi- 
cations of the principles and eulogies on the 
candidates he advocated. His services have 
been, perhaps, invoked as often as those of any 
public man on occasions festive and serious, and 
he has been always happy in his responses. His 
facility and readiness was fairly illustrated some 
years ago, when attending a convention of all 
the mayors of cities, railroad representatives, 
firemen's organizations, military companies and 
citizens, held in the city of Memphis on the 
occasion of the completion of the Memphis and 
Charleston Railroad. The Judge was riding in 
a carriage with the delegation of the city of 
Macon, when he saw Judge Hayden, the acting 
Mayor of Atlanta, on foot. With his character- 
istic courtesy, he alighted and walked with his 
friend. They arrived by a near way before the 
general procession, and were conducted by Mr. 
Douglas, Mayor of Memphis, to the stand. Soon 
the great crowd got in position. In front was a 
sea of firemen ready to pour the waters of the 
Atlantic into the waters of the Mississippi. All 
around were the masses of military and citizens, 
and on the left an array of lovely women. The 
order of the day was soon developed. It was 
speaking by the cities' representatives, Charles- 
ton leading off, followed by city after city, until 
at length the Mayor of Atlanta was called. 
" Here he is," said Judge Hayden, pushing for- 
ward Judge Lochrane. There was no room for 
apology. To the front he was quickly borne by 
the crowd. He had only commenced speaking, 
when all became still under the magic of a voice 
which rang clear and conscious of strength. He 
began with an allusion to Venice on the Adriatic, 
and Memphis on the Mississippi ; he spoke of 
the governments of both countries, paying a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



345 



tribute to the enterprise of America. He dwelt 
upon the beauties of the pictures at Venice, re- 
called master-piece after master-piece, and then, 
turning to the ladies before him, said, here were 
pictures "of loveliness of which the old masters 
never dreamed, and following with a glorious 
tribute .to the women of the South. He then 
alluded to the firemen, the benefits of their 
organization, and, alluding to the act about to 
be performed, the putting of the Atlantic to 
bed with the Mississippi, he closed with the 
quotation: "He'll find no Cassio's kisses on 
her lips." Of course every one applauded — in 
fact, three times was he called back, and each 
time made some allusion happier than the last. 

There were few men known to this country 
more able to meet such an occasion. Taken 
out of bed at Nashville by a serenading party, 
he made one of the best speeches of his life ; and 
it is well known that at any time when he is 
called upon he more than meets the demands'of 
the audience, for his mind is not only enriched 
with varied information, but he thinks upon his 
feet and speaks, on a sudden occasion, with all 
the accuracy of finished preparation. 

In his prepared addresses, he has no equal in 
style in respect of graphic word-painting, beauty, 
pathos and Irish imagery, overflowing with 
flowers of speech. Nothing in Phillips excels, 
in these respects, his Irish speech at Augusta ; 
nothing in Irish oratory is more simply beautiful 
than his speech before the societies at Athens. 
He can place his reputation upon these efforts, 
and posterity would do him justice in classing 
him amongst the most truly eloquent men of 
his day, for, not only are his speeches gems of 
poetry in prose, but the strongest currents of 
thought run silently below, and the beauties 
everywhere peeping forth are but the flowers 
lifted up without effort to the surface. 

In politics since the war, Judge Lochrane has 
been conservative. His remark the day Mr. 
Davis was brought a prisoner into Macon indi- 
cates the line of his opinions. " I want," said 
he, "the South to be what Scotland is to the 
government of England, not what Ireland is." 
At another time he declared : "I want to see a 



policy of conservatism and common-sense. I 
want capital invited, immigration fostered. I 
want our fields filled with labor. I don't want 
the poverty of blind and useless 'patriotism.' I 
love the sentiment, but our folly has made these 
women and children around us poor, and we 
owe it to them to rescue our drowned fortunes by 
good sense, so as to feed and educate them." 
On this line the Judge has hung, not for the 
sake of office, for he has evinced no desire for 
office, but out of a single love for the people of 
Georgia. Pie has large interests in the State. 
He was twice married, first to Miss Lamar, and 
after her death to Miss Freeman, by whom he 
has five children, two sons and three daughters. 
Although he is over fifty years of age, he is still 
in the prime of life, and looks like a man of 
scarcely forty. 

We have thus briefly outlined a career com- 
mencing without friends or patrons. A youth 
in years, and yet bearing, almost since his 
admission to the bar, the expenses of a family, 
who has won every victory he has achieved by 
his own will and energy, and who has had liter- 
ally to wring from fate the recognition of his 
talents. Take him as a drug-clerk on a small 
salary, and watch his every step over thirty years 
of life, and we discover the reliance and self- 
confidence which true genius alone can create. 
Consider Judge Lochrane as an orator — with 
what splendid triumphs has he not crowned his 
fame ! 

His taste for literature invoked the study 
necessary to such triumphs. A friend of Judge 
Lochrane once remarked: "Why, sir, I have 
found him at night in bed when the books cov- 
ered more than the space he lay on." Another, 
who, as his partner, knew him better than other 
men, affirmed that Judge Lochrane was the 
hardest worker he ever knew, adding, "he 
would not go to bed at all, nor let me lie down 
until we had read every paper, ransacked 
authorities innumerable, and fully and exactly 
prepared for the fight of the coming day." 

One of his attributes of genius was to catch 
the points of his adversary, and be prepared for 
them. When he has anything to do, he never 



346 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



rests or falters until he masters it. In the midst 
of bright conversation with you, he is very likely 
secretly going over in his mind some question 
he has involved in an important lawsuit. In 
the smile of his face lit up with apparent happi- 
ness — and no one ever saw him frown — there is, 
if you notice particularly, a shadow flitting now 
and then and a look of reverie, which indicates, 
to those who know him well, profound medita- 
tion. He studies men as he studies books, and 
in his daily walk he is accustomed to make 
mental note of such peculiarities of character 
as he encounters, and later on, in some speech, 
his observations of men will leap out in some 
happy point of wit or flash in some illustration, 
sure to captivate his audience by its novel and 
graphic clearness. 

In readiness of apt quotation, Judge Lochrane 
was always wonderfully distinguished even above 
other men of parts and learning. This pro- 
ceeds not only from deep reading, but constant 
reading. Strip his speeches of all ornament, 
and the diction is yet pure, clear and simple, 
and the style closely and consistently argument- 
ative. His training has been the result of 
great painstaking and labor. He is himself 
fond of declaring that his wife is his best and 
most incorruptible critic ; her intuitions clearly 
marking out for him no uncertain path. Many 
men, who have risen to great eminence, not 
only owe their elevation to the influence of a 
refined and affectionate woman, but such men 
have hastened to admit it. Judge Lochrane 
relates with zest the many and signal helps he 
has received, even in his highest efforts at 
oratorical effect, from his highly cultured and 
deeply conscientious fireside critic. More than 
one speech Mrs. Lochrane has required the 
Judge to burn before her eyes simply because 
she did not like it, and he submits with trustful 
alacrity to her unerring judgment. Music has 
for him an especial charm. Before commencing 
to develop a subject requiring close thought or 
delicate imagery, he is wont to repose at length 
upon a sofa, and, bathed in a flood of music and 
cigar smoke, to remain in a delicious trance, 
until, starling up suddenly, you may be quite 



sure he will do rapid and excellent work for the 
next half-dozen hours. 

His oratorical style is evidently moulded after 
the great Irish orator, Phillips. He has all the 
fluency, the glow and glory of words, the shining 
images, the quick turns and heated climaxes, 
that mark that prince of popular speakers. He 
can warm into poetry of language at a touch, 
and pour out thoughts like music — thoughts that 
carry with them, and scatter broadcast, ..bat 
singular power that is experienced in the trem- 
bling of fine muscles and the thrilling of delicate 
nerves, chilling and yet grandly animating the 
whole frame. 

In social converse, Judge Lochrane is full of 
brilliancy. To him nothing grows common- 
place, the simplest subject being illustrated with 
an anecdote, or touched into beauty with some 
sentiment. The hard and harsh realities of life 
grate singularly upon him. No man is by nature 
more averse to the spectacle of human misery, 
but instead of avoiding it, lie is sure to alleviate 
it by a liberal charity. Careful to earn large 
fees, and to lay by in store ample fortune for his 
family, he has nevertheless sowed money broad- 
cast with a careless, prodigal hand. Though he 
is, and has always been from his early manhood, 
expensive in all his tastes, extravagant in dress, 
in books, in travel, in everything, no man ever 
saw him without money in his purse. 

At home he is an object of very great and 
tender consideration. His children run to meet 
him, cling round him, get upon his lap with 
arms about his neck, and as he is pulled here 
and there in affectionate familiarity by baby 
fingers his heart overflows with love for his little 
ones. Toys come to his household like endless 
Santa Clans visits. His children are seldom 
checked or admonished by him. His income is 
large, his home luxurious, and, hemmed in with 
rich and refined surroundings, he lives a life of 
easy, of even and contented enjoyment. 

In sympathy Judge Lochrane has been always 
full to overflowing. He never passes an object 
of real charity, gives where it is doubtful, and 
has ever ^ hand open to his friends. Main 
instances ight be adduced of his assistance to 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



347 



friends, kindly and thoughtfully extended. And 
yet he is not what might be termed a philan- 
thropist. He would give to a sickly woman or 
destitute child his last dollar, but to educational 
or charitable institutions his subscriptions would 
be difficult to obtain. His charity is influenced 
by his sympathy, and acts at once, not by specu- 
lation or persuasion. 

Of all difficult subjects to write a biography 
of, the life of one whose chief eminence is based 
upon his eloquence in public speaking is perhaps 
most difficult. Should we lengthen this account 
by full quotations from the speeches of Judge 
Lochrane, they would still lack the matchless 
power of his delivery. To make a pen-portrait 
of his powers, one must catch his own inspira- 
tion and enthusiasm. That he may be under- 
stood and properly appreciated, it is necessary 
to see the unruffled manner in the midst of an 
exciting case ; the unexcited features when the 
whole court is throbbing with excitement ; the 
complacency of manner when all else is rough- 
ened with confusion ; the apparent imperturba- 
bility when everything is boiling over with in- 
terest and anxiety — and then the instant change 
that sweeps over him when he rises to address 
the court, the jury, or the audience. His face 
becomes earnest. The hand he holds out quivers 
with suppressed emotion. The big drops, forced 
to the surface by the rushing activities of his 
mind, gather on his temples. His voice swells 
into his theme as his audience startled into at- 
tention melt into silence, and once away upon 
his subject he may be said to speak from head 
to foot. The gestures subdued by training, the 
voice modulated by discipline, the whole figure 
transforms itself into a figure of speech soft and 
sweet, now thundering, now flashing electricity, 
now pouring out emotion in burning words, 
never pausing, never sinking, never tiring, but 
onward, upward, roundward, flying without fal- 
tering or resting until the climax is reached, and 
the audience, strangely moved and agitated by 
the sounds that still ring in their ears, are left to 
their own reflections, whilst the speaker falls 
back in a moment into the same smiling, chat- 
ting, careless position he occupied at the outset. 




HON. J. D. POPE. 

South Carolina. 

OSEPH DANIEL POPE was born April 
6th, 1820. The Pope family is of Eng- 
lish extraction, and came to America 
and settled in South Carolina in the 
■^ time of Queen Anne. There were four 
of this name in the war of the revolution, Joseph, 
William, John, and James ; William becoming a 
captain and serving under Marion. Owing to 
the vicissitudes of the war they lost the whole 
of their patrimony. Joseph, the grandfather of 
the subject of this sketch, \ being left with a piece 
of land and but one negro called "Toney," 
commenced building plantation boats, in which 
the negro assisted. Having achieved consider- 
able success in this enterprise, he subsequently 
became the owner of a number of African slaves 
and engaged in planting, dying in 181 8 after 
having attained a comfortable fortune. His 
brothers all secured handsome competencies, 
and all were strong members of the Church of 
England. Joseph's son, Joseph James Pope, 
the father of Joseph Daniel Pope, was a planter 
of St. Helena parish, S. C, who subsequently 
removed to Hilton Head and became the most 
successful sea-island cotton-grower on the coast; 
he died during the late war between the States, 
having lost the whole of his property ; he was a 
graduate of the University of South Carolina, 
and possessed literary and mathematical attain- 
ments of a high order, and married a member 
of the Jenkins family, who were of Welsh de- 
scent. Joseph Daniel' Pope was educated by 
tutors in his father's family until the age of 
thirteen on St. Helena Island, one of the sea 
islands on the coast of South Carolina, from 
which St. Helena parish takes its name. From 
thence he was sent to Waterboro, a famous 
academy of that day under the direction of the 
Rev. Mr. Vandyck, and after a three years' 
course he entered the University of Georgia, at 
Athens, then a very excellent institution, and 
graduated thence with distinction in 1841. 
Among his classmates at the university may be 
mentioned General T. R. R. Cobb, who was 



34S 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



killed in the war ; Professors John and Joseph 
Le Conte, the former President and the latter 
Professor of Natural History and Mineralogy in 
the University of California, and formerly of 
the University of South Carolina; the Rev. Dr. 
William Williams, who has attained a very high 
rank as a Baptist preacher at Greenville ; and the 
Rev. Benjamin Palmer, now of New Orleans, 
and perhaps the greatest pulpit orator in the 
Presbyterian Church in the South. After grad- 
uation, Mr. Pope read law with the distinguished 
lawyer, James L. Pettigrew. at Charleston, for 
two years, and was admitted to the bar in 1854. 
He commenced practice at the Beaufort bar, and 
entered into partnership with the very able law- 
yer, Richard de Treville, principally devoting 
their attention to equity causes, and soon ac- 
quired a fine practice, more particularly in cases 
involving rights in private property and in wills. 
Mr. de Treville was successively a member of the 
House of Representatives and of the Senate for 
twenty years, Lieutenant-Governor of the State, 
and a member of the Secession Convention. 
Mr. Pope was elected to the House of Repre- 
sentatives in 1S50 for St. Helena parish, and 
held that position until 1S60, and for five or six 
years served on the Committee on Federal Rela- 
tions, and was Chairman of that body when the 
John Brown raid into Virginia took place. The 
matter was referred to them to report what 
action should be taken by South Carolina ; there 
was great excitement about the matter, and 
the committee reported that it was an invasion 
of the soil of Virginia, and, until that State 
called /for assistance, it was indecorous for South 
Carolina to offer it. This report was not con- 
sidered too moderate by the Legislature, and it 
was decided to send Mr. Memminger as Com- 
missioner to Richmond to offer the services of 
the State in such an emergency. The authori- 
ties complimented South Carolina highly on her 
kind and prompt offer of assistance but declined 
it as unneeded. In December, i860, he became a 
member of the convention called to consider the 
policy of secession, in which he took an active 
part, and was one of the signers of the ordi- 
nance of secession, who included among others 



R. V Rhett, Robert Barnwell, C. G. Memmin- 
ger, Chancellor B. F. Duncan, Judge T. J. 
Withers, and James Chestnut, then United 
States Senator. The convention first assembled 
in Columbia, S. C, in December, i860, where 
it was organized in the Baptist Church on Plain 
street, and was without doubt one of the ablest 
bodies of men that ever assembled together on 
this continent. In consequence of the preva- 
lence of small-pox at the time in Columbia the 
convention, as well as the two houses of Legis- 
lature, adjourned to Charleston, the convention 
meeting in the Public Hall on Broad street and 
the Legislature in Hibernia Hall on Meeting 
street. After the convention had organized the 
question arose as to the best method of securing 
the co-operation of the other Southern States, 
and a protracted debate ensued, during which 
various propositions were introduced for the 
organization of a Southern government and for 
the modus operandi of putting it in motion. Mr. 
Memminger being then in the chair, a resolu- 
tion was offered by Mr. J. D. Pope that the 
delegates from the several States on meeting at 
Montgomery, Ala., chosen for its central posi- 
tion, should, without referring the question back 
to the people; organize themselves into a Con- 
gress, adopt a Constitution, and elect the Presi- 
dent and Vice-President for a provisional gov- 
ernment, and by these means place the Confed- 
erate government upon a permanent foundation. 
This resolution was subsequently adopted by all 
the Southern States, who pursued the same course, 
and Mr. Memminger, when Secretary of the 
Treasury, wrote to Mr. Pope from Montgomery 
that in his opinion that resolution saved the 
organization of the Confederacy^ which might 
otherwise have collapsed through local preju- 
dices and jealousies. The provisional govern- 
ment, of which Jefferson Davis was elected Presi- 
dent, removed after about three months from 
Montgomery to Richmond, and at the expira- 
tion of twelve months made way for the per- 
manent government, of which Jefferson Davis 
was elected President for six years almost by 
acclamation. In the meantime, however, the 
South Carolina Convention, previous to its rep- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



349 



resentation at Montgomery, sent a committee 
consisting of Robert Barnwell, the late Gov- 
ernor James H. Adams, and the late James L. 
Orr, to Washington, to negotiate terms of sepa- 
ration without recourse to hostilities ; they re- 
mained there three or four weeks, but public 
feeling was so violent that they could accom- 
plish nothing and were compelled to return and 
so report to the convention. Upon this a spe- 
cial agent was despatched, Isaac W. Hayne, 
then Attorney-General of the State, to remain 
at Washington as Ambassador from South Caro- 
lina, and use his utmost efforts to accomplish 
a peaceful separation. Some time after this the 
steamer "Star of the West" was despatched 
from a northern port by private parties, with the 
connivance, however, of the government, with 
supplies for Fort Sumter, in express violation of 
the stipulations agreed to between Mr. W. H. 
Seward and Mr. Hayne that no action should 
be taken to disturb the status quo. When the 
steamer appeared off Charleston the Governor, 
F. W. Pickens, ordered her to be fired upon by 
the batteries on Morris Island, and she was com- 
pelled to turn back and abandon her mission. 
Mr.. Hayne, finding that the pledges of the gov- 
ernment were not to be relied upon, returned 
to Charleston, and General Beauregard, having 
been appointed by the provisional Confederate 
government at Montgomery, commenced to 
erect the batteries around Charleston harbor. 
When these arrangements were perfected, Major 
Anderson, the Union officer in charge of Fort 
Sumter, was summoned to surrender, and, upon 
his refusal, the order was given to fire, and at 
four o'clock on the morning of April 21st, 1S61, 
the first gun was fired from the battery on James 
Island by General James Chestnut, United 
States Senator for South Carolina, then recently 
returned from Washington. Although the main 
object of the convention had been accomplished, 
it did not adjourn, because it had been called, 
in the language of the great Athenian, " to see 
that the State received no detriment," and it 
therefore continued in session from time to time 
and appointed a Council of Safety to assist the 
government, consisting of Governor William H. 



Gist, Lieutenant-Governor W. W. Harlee, Gen- 
eral Chestnut, Attorney-General I. W. Hayne, 
and General A. C. Garlington ; this arrange- 
ment remained in force for over twelve months, 
until the permanent Confederate government 
had established all its branches and the whole 
conduct of the war was in the hands of the Con- 
federate government instead of the individual 
States. At the fall of Beaufort in November, 
1861, Mr. Pope lost the whole of his property 
except a few servants and removed to Columbia, 
and while still a member of the convention was, 
in 1862, elected to the State Senate, and re- 
tained that position until the close of the war. 
While in the Senate he was appointed by Presi- 
dent Davis to take charge of the tax bureau for 
the purpose of raising supplies to carry on the 
war, South Carolina sending 60,000 men to 
the field out of a population of not more than 
400,000, and Mr. Memminger, the Secretary 
of the Treasury, appointed him to superintend 
the printing of the Confederate State Treasury 
notes, which were issued on a large scale and 
became the currency of the Confederate States. 
With the fall of the Confederacy Mr. Pope re- 
tired from political life, and has ever since 
declined nomination to any political cfHce, al- 
though in 1868 he was a member of the Execu- 
tive Committee, on which Governor Wade 
Hampton also served, to support Seymour and 
Blair for President and Vice-President of the 
United States. 

At the close of the war he commenced the 
practice of law in Columbia; during 1866 and 
1867 in conjunction with Mr. Fickling, as 
Fickling & Pope, and from 1868 to 1877 in as- 
sociation with Mr. A. C. Haskell, as Pope & 
Haskell ; in the latter year his partner was ele- 
vated to the Supreme Court Bench, and he has 
since been associated with Mr. John Haskell, a 
brother of his former partner, under the same 
firm. He has always had a very extensive prac- 
tice, being engaged in almost all the important 
cases brought to frustrate the rascalities at- 
tempted against the State government during 
carpet-bag rule. Among the more important 
may be mentioned The State ex parte Shiver vs. 



35° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



The Comptroller-General, to prevent the issue 
of about $2,000,000 of bills of credit, called 
Revenue Bond Scrip, that were ordered by an 
act of the Legislature to be issued, to take up 
certain bonds of the Blue Ridge Railroad, that 
it was alleged the State had guaranteed: the 
court held that the issue of the scrip was against 
the Constitution of the United States, prohibit- 
ing any State issuing bills of credit, Mr. Pope 
making the argument on the part of the State; 
The State ex re. the Mayor and Aldermen of the 
City of Columbia vs. John Alexander and others, 
to resist the right of John Alexander and others, 
who were elected by the colored population, to 
assume the city government, on the ground that 
they were not properly elected under the consti- 
tution of the State: the court, which was com- 
posed of Chief-Justice Moses and Judges Willard 
and Wright (colored), all creatures of the cor- 
rupt radical government, overruled Mr. Pope's 
argument, and forced a government on the city 
of Columbia which from that time, November, 
i36S, to March, 1878, ran the city into debt, 
squandered its funds, and brought its bonds 
down from par to from fifty to sixty cents on 
the dollar. He appeared also as counsel in the 
cases brought in the Supreme Court to test the 
validity of the election of State officers and 
members of the Legislature, and in the cases of 
the Tilden electors. He took an active part, 
both in writing and consultation, in the exciting 
and triumphant campaign of 1876, which re- 
sulted in the triumph of Wade Hampton and 
the honest men of the State over the thieves 
who had controlled the government for so long. 
Mr. Pope holds the highest rank at the Bar of 
Columbia, and is one of the few of the old pro- 
fessional regime which at one time cast such | 
distinction on the Bar of that city. He pos- 1 
sesses a fine judicial mind, great legal acumen 
and capacious grasp of intellect ; his oratorical 
powers are of a high order, his fine voice, great 
command of language and impressive address, 
added to his high character and strict personal j 
integrity, make his arguments tell strongly with; 
the panel. His impulsive, generous nature, and 1 
sterling qualities have won him many warm 



friends, and his fine, commanding presence, 
cultivated and courteous manners and kindness 
of heart, make him a fine specimen of the 
Southern gentleman of the old school, now alas! 
fast passing away. 

He married, in 1846, Catherine S. Scott, 
daughter of Dr. John A. P. Scott, physician and 
planter, near Beaufort, who lost all his property 
in the war, and lived with his son-in-law until 
his death, about three years ago, in his eighty- 
fourth year. His eldest son, Joseph D\ Pope, 
is engaged in mercantile pursuits, and his eldest 
daughter married Samuel R. Stoney, civil engi- 
neer, of Columbia. 



CHIEF-JUSTICE PEARSON. 

North Carolina. 

ICHMOND MUMFORD PEARSON was 
born, June, 1805, in Rowan comity, 
N. C, and was the fourth son of Colo- 
nel Richmond Pearson, one of the 
most active and enterprising citizens 
of the Yadkin Valley, who had been a wealthy 
planter and merchant in western North Carolina 
until the close of the war of 1812, when he 
failed, owing to the sudden fall in prices. His 
grandfather, Richmond Pearson, was a native 
of Dinwiddie county, Va., and at the age of 
nineteen came to North Carolina and settled in 
the forks of the Yadkin ; he was a lieutenant in 
the war of the Revolution, and with his company 
harassed the advance of Cornwallis through this 
State, and was a man of marked courage and 
independence of character; he afterwards be- 
came a successful merchant and planter, and 
died in 1819. 

The subject of this sketch, at the time of his 
father's failure, was a child of seven years of age, 
and would have been unable to receive a liberal 
education but for the kindness of his elder 
brother, the Hon. Joseph Pearson, member of 
Congress from North Carolina for fifteen suc- 
cessive years. He received his early education 
under John Mushat, one of the most successful 
instructors of his day, and at Washington, D. C, 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



35* 



spending his boyhood at Brentwood, the resi- 
dence of his elder brother. He entered the 
University of North Carolina in 1815, and 
graduated thence with the highest honors of his 
class in 1823, delivering the Latin salutatory. 
Among his classmates were Governor William 
A. Graham, Hon. Robert B. Gilliam and Daniel 
W. Courts. Choosing the law as his profession, 
he entered the office of Judge Henderson, and, 
having completed his course, received his license 
in 1826. He commenced the practice of his 
profession at Salisbury, N. C, and his rise was 
at once rapid and marked, his early career giv- 
ing evidence of the great abilities by which he 
was afterwards so eminently distinguished. 

In 1829 he was elected to represent his native 
county in the House of Commons, and re- 
elected for the years 1830-31-32. In 1835 he 
was a candidate for Congress from the Tenth 
District, his opponents being Abram Reucher 
and Burton Craige ; the contest was a warm one, 
and Mr. Reucher was the successful candidate. 
By the Legislature of 1836 he was elected one 
of the Judges of the Superior Court of the State, 
his competitor being Thomas P. Devereux, of 
Raleigh. He gained reputation steadily as a 
jurist, and at the session of the Legislature in 
1S48-49 his name was brought forward for elec- 
tion to the vacancy on the Supreme Court Bench 
occasioned by the death of Judge Daniel, which 
had been temporarily supplied by Governor 
William A. Graham in the appointment of Hon. 
William H. Battle. The majority in the Legis- 
lature were Democratic, whilst Mr. Pearson had 
always been a staunch old-line Whig. The 
Democratic candidate was the Hon. Robert 
Strange, but the Governor, who was of the same 
politics as Mr. Pearson, favored Judge W. H. 
Battle, who had filled the vacancy ad interim. 
The contest was a very excited one, and after a 
week's balloting terminated in the election of 
Judge Pearson by three votes. 

In 1858 the celebrated case of Spruill vs. 
Leary was argued before the court ; the case in- 
volved the most abstruse and intricate doctrines 
of the common law. The point in the case was : 
Where A, who had a fee simple, defeasible in the 



event of his dying without issue living at his 
death, conveyed the land in fee with general 
warranty to B, and afterwards died without 
issue. Quaere, will the collateral warranty bar 
his heirs and those claiming under? Chief- 
Justice Ruffin, a man of vast learning and ex- 
ceptional ability, with Judge Nash, held that 
this warranty did bar the party claiming under 
executory devise. Judge Pearson dissented, 
and his opinion in this case probably gave him 
greater reputation for cogent reasoning and ac- 
curate acquaintance with the difficult and subtle 
distinctions of the English law than any other. 
His opinion was subsequently declared by the 
Supreme Court to be good law, and has been 
considered in America and England one of the 
profoundest discussions since the days of Lord 
Coke on this "cunning and curious learning" 
of warranty at the common law. On the strength 
of Judge Pearson's opinion in this case, Reverdy 
Johnson once gained a very important case, in- 
volving for him a ten thousand dollar fee. In 
after years the same principle as that decided in 
Spruill vs. Leary was presented to the court, and 
the former decision was overruled and his dis- 
senting opinion affirmed, and henceforward it 
was conceded that, though others might be his 
superiors in versatility of talents, literary culture, 
or variety of erudition, in the realm of common 
law, technically so called, he stood alone and 
without a peer. 

Upon the death of Chief-Justice Nash, in 
1858, he was chosen Chief- Just ice of North 
Carolina. Having been an old-line Whig all 
his life, he was opposed to and voted against 
the policy of secession, remaining a consistent 
Union man throughout the war; though as he 
took no part in politics, and it would have been 
difficult to have filled his place, he remained in 
office as Chief- Justice during the whole time. 
During these exciting times he took a very bold 
stand in support of the integrity of the writ of 
habeas corpus, and would not countenance the 
idea of its suspension, in spite of the strong 
pressure brought to bear, and by his indepen- 
dent and almost defiant attitude on this ques- 
tion, rendered himself exceedingly unpopular 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



with both the State and Confederate executive 
officers. For a time he was the only Judge who 
would grant the writ of habeas corpus, and his 
home in the mountains, Richmond Hill, was 
besieged night and day by applicants for the 
relief of men who claimed to be illegally con- 
scripted and arrested. People from every sec- 
tion of the State appealed to him to hear and 
determine their rights, and at times there were 
as many as two or three hundred men and 
horses at Richmond Hill awaiting his decisions. 

In 1865 he was a candidate for the Constitu- 
tional Convention, but was defeated by Mr. 
Haynes. He was appointed Chief-Justice under 
the provisional government, and upon the adop- 
tion of the new constitution, in 1S68, having 
received the all but unanimous vote of both 
political parties, he was again elected Chief- 
Justice, and continued to hold that office until 
his death, in January, 1878. 

Viewing the bold course that he had pursued 
during the war, and the unpopularity that he 
had incurred in official quarters, this unanimous 
re-election by the people may be regarded as the 
most sincere and significant tribute to his char- 
acter and talents that has ever been paid to him. 
' In the fall of 1868 he published an address 
setting forth his reasons for intending to vote 
for General Grant for President ; and though he 
never attended a political meeting, delivered a 
political speech, or otherwise took any part in 
the excited politics of that day, he was charged 
by the general public with being a partisan 
judge. Colonel Kirk, acting under the orders 
of Governor Holden, had refused to obey the 
writs of habeas corpus in the cases of Moore and 
others, and the counsel for the prisoners moved 
for an attachment against Kirk and for an order 
to the sheriff to take the bodies by force out of 
his custody; after much excited discussion at 
the Bar, Chief-Justice Pearson addressed a com- 
munication to the Governor, asking to be in- 
formed if he avowed the order to Colonel Kirk, 
but had no communication with him either di- 
rectly or indirectly. The Chief-Justice drew up 
four questions upon which he desired to hear 
argument from the Bar, and the addresses of 



counsel upon these occupied four days. In his 
opinion he decided, first, that under the statute 
the Governor was authorized to declare a county 
to be in a state of insurrection and to arrest sus- 
pected persons ; and second, he declared the law 
to be that the privilege of the writ of habeas 
corpus was not suspended, and that it was the 
duty of the Governor to allow the prisoners to 
be delivered up to the civil authorities for trial. 
This prevented a trial by a military court, and 
ought to have been followed by an immediate 
return of the bodies of the prisoners. An order 
was also made to the Marshal to bring the pris- 
oners before the Chief-Justice, and he was in- 
structed to exhibit the order, together with a 
copy of the opinion, to Governor Holden. 
Having set out the matter plainly before the 
Executive the responsibility of refusing to revoke 
the orders clearly rested with him. 

In his communication in reply, the Governor 
recited that his authority to declare a county to 
be in a state of insurrection and to arrest sus- 
pected prisoners, was conceded by the Chief- 
Justice, but altogether evaded the fact that the 
main point had been decided against him, and 
thus an erroneous impression was conveyed to 
the public that the Chief-Justice had, to some 
extent, concurred in the refusal to revoke those 
orders and the delay consequent thereon. The 
Governor, in avowing his orders to Colonel 
Kirk, took the ground that the public safety did 
not allow him at that time to allow the writs to 
be obeyed. Writs were also issued by the Chief- 
Justice in Wiley and others, to which the same 
reply was made, and he left Raleigh under the 
impression that the Governor would at a future 
day allow the bodies to be returned, -which 
course was pursued soon afterwards, and, on the 
examination before the Chief-Justice and Justices 
Dick and Settle, they concluded that there was 
probable cause developed by the evidence to 
make the prisoner liable for murder. 

The Reconstruction acts and the Constitution 
of 1868 were unpopular, but they were the fun- 
damental laws under which the State govern- 
ment had to be administered, and, as a Judge, 
he was sworn to support them ; he could only 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



353 



say what the law was, not what it ought to be, 
and when these popular prejudices are forgotten 
these decisions considered simply as judicial ex- 
positions of the law will stand side by side with 
the ablest of his life. In 1870 imputations of 
the gravest character were made against him in 
connection with the habeas corpus cases which 
created such intense feeling at that time, which 
he felt to be so undeserved that he wrote a 
memorial to the General Assembly of North 
Carolina, which has been published since his 
death, in which he completely exonerates him- 
self from the charges of corruption and venality 
in his official conduct. 

He left his home, at Richmond Hill, on 5th 
January, 1878, in his usual health, to attend the 
January term of the Supreme Court at Raleigh, 
and whilst in his buggy was stricken with paraly- 
sis of the right side of the brain and was never 
conscious afterwards, dying at Winston, N. C, 
January 5th. His remains were taken to Raleigh, 
where they lay in state at the capitol, and were 
buried -at Oakwood Cemetery. A memorial 
meeting of the Bar was held, at which resolu- 
tions were passed expressing the great loss the 
Bar had sustained by his death, and their sincere 
sympathy with his family, and eloquent tribute 
was paid by Colonel T. C. Fuller, C. M. Busbee, 
Judge E. G. Reade, R. T. Gray, Governor 
Vance and others, alike to his eminent abilities 
as a judge and to his private worth. 

Elected a Judge when he was but thirty-one 
years of age, he presided over the courts of North 
Carolina for more than forty years, for nineteen 
years of which he filled the highest judicial sta- 
tion in the gift of the people of the State. It is 
said, on good authority, that after the death of 
Chief-Justice Chase, the commission of Judge 
Pearson as Chief-Justice of the United States 
was made out and signed by President Grant; 
but ascertaining that Judge Pearson was in his 
sixty-eighth year, the President cancelled it, 
and appointed Chief-Justice Waite. He was the 
greatest common-law lawyer the State has ever 
produced among the many honored names which 
have stood in the front rank of American jurists. 
He possessed great grasp of intellect and une- 
23 



quailed reasoning powers, added to a wonderful 
ability for dissecting intricate and complicated 
cases. The facility with which he seized the 
strong points of a question was amazing, and he 
always presented his views plainly, logically and 
directly. He had, by close study of the science 
of law, acquired such an accuracy in his method 
of thought that his knowledge of the principles, 
and the reasons upon which they are founded, 
appeared to be intuitive, and his opinions were 
quoted with the highest commendation in the 
courts of other States, and in England where 
his opinions have been quoted three times in 
Westminster Hall. He was a terse and pithy 
writer, and his judicial opinions, spread over 
many volumes of the "North Carolina Reports," 
will be a lasting monument of his claim to great- 
ness. As an instructor in law he was without 
superior, and possessed a remarkable facility of 
imparting his knowledge in a simple yet clear 
and thorough manner, to others. A devoted 
admirer of Coke upon Littleton, he always im- 
pressed upon his students the necessity of study- 
ing those commentaries closely, and attributed 
much of his own proficiency in the law to the 
assiduity with which he had studied his favorite 
author in his earlier years. The secret of his 
great strength lies in the fact that through his 
law-school he had won the respect and friend- 
ship of the majority of the lawyers of the State. 
With but very few exceptions those who had 
studied law under his tuition never ceased, in 
after life, to regard him with affection and 
veneration. The young disciples of the law, 
who surrounded him in his mountain retreat, 
felt towards him almost like children to a father. 
He would walk and talk with them in the shades 
of Richmond Hill very much as Socrates and 
Plato are said to have done in the shady groves 
of the Lyceum. Indeed his method of instruc- 
tion resembled in many respects that of the 
ancient philosophers of Athens. For forty years 
he had never opened the pages of Blackstone 
for the purpose of hearing a recitation ; he was 
so well acquainted with the book that he never 
had occasion to consult it. His method was to 
ask a question, and if the student missed it, not 



354 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



to tell him so, but to ask another and another 
until the student answered aright, and then make 
him compare his answers until he was convinced 
of the error of his first response. It is estimated 
that more than half of the practising lawyers in 
North Carolina are alumni of his school; cer- 
tainly a large majority of those who have distin- 
guished themselves * the State received their 
early training from him. In the city of Raleigh 
alone, two justices of the Supreme Court, the 
attorney-general, the mayor of the city, the 
United States district-attorney, and the two 
lawyers who command unquestionably the 
largest and most lucrative practice in the State, 
are all old students of his, and he took as much 
pride in the honors they attained as though they 
had been his sons. The most earnest aim of his 
life was to win the respect of his fellow-citizens, 
and if his judicial action at times provoked 
sharp and bitter criticism, it is certain that their 
censures were directed less at the man than at 
his political influence. These hostile criticisms 
considered in connection with the proceedings 
had after his death, seem to justify the encomium 
pronounced upon his character, viz.: that "his 
courage was greater than his ambition, and that 
his sense of right was stronger than his love of 
praise." It might be said of him as it was said 
of William Pitt, that among the many great 
men whose lives have illustrated the judicial his- 
tory of his State, "scarcely one has left a more 
spotless, and none a more splendid name." In 
all the storm of adverse criticism that raged 
about him, he enjoyed the consolation of a 
mens sibi conscia recti, and he had an abiding 
faith that the day would come, after prejudice 
and passion had passed away, when all his fel- 
low-citizens would give him credit for having 
discharged his duty conscientiously and courage- 
ously without fear or favor, or hope of reward. 

As a man he was distinguished for his honesty 
of purpose, unbending integrity, inflexible idea 
of justice, and conscientious devotion to what 
he considered to be his duty. While to the 
eyes of the world he seemed somewhat cold and 
austere, to those who knew him intimately he 
was a genial, genei-ous, warm-hearted man, plain 



and simple in his tastes, and many a young law- 
yer, struggling to obtain a foothold in his pro- 
fession, has owed his success to his generosity 
and substantial sympathy and kindness. A 
devoted father, he made of his children compan- 
ions and friends, and his heart, tender as a 
woman's, was ever prompted to acts of true 
benevolence and charity. 

He was twice married; first, June 12th, 1832, 
to Margaret M. Williams, daughter of United 
States Senator John Williams, of Tennessee, and 
niece of Hugh L. White, also United States 
Senator from Tennessee and Whig candidate for 
the Presidency in 1836; and second, in 1859, 
to the widow of General John Gray Bynum, and 
daughter of Charles McDowell, of Morganton, 
N. C. 

COLONEL L. L. POLK. 

North Carolina. 

|EONIDAS L. POLK was born, April 
24th, 1837, in Anson county, N. C. 
His family is of Irish extraction, and 
several of its members were honorably 
distinguished in the early history of 
this country — Thomas Polk, one of them, having 
been a signer of the Mecklenburg Declaration 
of Independence, made May 20th, 1775, and a 
Colonel in the Revolutionary army, and William 
Polk, another, an active participant in the 
struggles of that day. He is the son of Andrew 
Polk, a farmer, of Mecklenburg county, N. C, 
and was himself brought up and educated for 
the same pursuit. After attending the schools 
of his native county, he took an irregular course 
in 1855 and 1856 at the Davidson Presbyterian 
College in Mecklenburg county, applying him- 
self especially to the study of scientific agricul- 
ture. Meanwhile, he lost, at the age of fourteen, 
both father and mother, and was thrown on his 
own resources. In 1857 he married Sarah P. 
Gaddy, daughter of Joel Gaddy, a prosperous 
farmer, and having purchased the old homestead 
in Anson county from his father's executors, 
addressed himself in good earnest to farming, 
which he looked upon as the business of his life. 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



355 



The Whigs of his county nominated him in i860 
for the lower branch of the State Legislature, 
and elected him at the head of the ticket, al- 
though he made the canvass openly as a Union 
man, putting aside all questions of merely State 
politics, and resolutely staking his election on 
the simple issue of Union or Disunion. The 
Whigs in the Legislature, when it met, exerted 
their utmost power to prevent the passage of the 
bill calling a State Convention, and did manage 
to check it for a time; but President Lincoln's 
proclamation, calling on North Carolina for 
troops to invade her sister State, at last cut the 
ground from under their feet, and swept them 
all away, making them, and him among the 
rest, as eager for secession as they had been 
heretofore zealous against it. The Legislature, 
to which he had been chosen, held two extra 
sessions, at the first of which was called the 
Convention that passed the ordinance of seces- 
sion on the 20th of May, 1S61, and at the 
second, held in the fall of 1861, measures were 
taken to put the State on a war footing, the 
chief of these measures being a very rigid militia 
law, making the whole population liable to mil- 
itary duty, and, of course, requiring for its due 
enforcement men of unusual energy and deter- 
mination, as well as of stern impartiality. Of 
those selected for this delicate and difficult ser- 
vice he was one, and, what made the service still 
more trying to him, he was detailed for his own 
county, in which he personally knew almost 
every citizen. Nevertheless, he accepted the 
position, and performed its duties, receiving the 
commission of a Colonel, and organizing the 
militia under the law until May, 1862, when he 
volunteered as a private in Colonel Vance's 
regiment, the Twenty-sixth North Carolina. 
In this regiment he was appointed Sergeant- 
Major by his Colonel, having been previously 
offered a Captaincy, which he declined. The 
regiment remained at Kinston until the latter 
part of June, when it was ordered to Richmond, 
where it participated in the Seven Days' fight 
around the city, terminating at Malvern Hill, in 
which it was badly cut up, and after which, 
forming part of Pettigrew's brigade, it stayed in 



the vicinity of the James and in the eastern part 
of Virginia and North Carolina until the follow- 
ing year, fighting during the fall and winter 
around Nevvbern, Washington and Plymouth. 
Previously, in August, 1862, he was selected by 
the officers of the regiment to present, on their 
behalf, a sword to Colonel Vance, who had been 
elected Governor of North Carolina, and .vas 
about to take leave of his regiment. In February, 
1863, he was unanimously elected Lieutenanr of 
his company, in the Forty-third North Carolina 
Regiment, to whose Colonel (Kenan) he reported 
at Kinston. His regiment remained in the 
Eastern District of the State till the ensuing 
June, when it was taken to Virginia, and placed 
in the army of General Lee, then on the point 
of advancing against Gettysburg, though at the 
beginning of this advance he was so ill as to be 
compelled to accept a furlough for a short time, 
and did not overtake the regiment, after he was 
able to set out, until he reached Shippensburg, 
Pa., having marched on foot in pursuit of it 
from Staunton, Va., a distance of two hundred 
miles. His regiment at this time formed part 
of Daniel's brigade in Early's corps, and, by 
severe marching, reaching Gettysburg on the 
morning of the 1st of July about eleven o'clock, 
entered the battle without a moment's delay, 
and fought till nearly dark, losing a large Lum- 
ber of men, but capturing fourteen hundred 
prisoners. In the final charge, his regiment 
being enfiladed by a battery, a shell exploded 
just before him, inflicting a severe wound in iiis 
foot, from the effects of which he became delir- 
ious for days, and was carried back to Peters- 
burg, Va. , where he had the good fortune to fall 
under the care of Mrs. C. M. Page, who nursed 
him with the tenderness and devotion of a 
mother. He recovered so rapidly that during 
August he rejoined his regiment at Orange 
Court-House, on the Rapidan river, and engaged 
immediately in the severe duty imposed on the 
troops there, building breast-works, skirmishing 
and constant drilling, all the while exposed, 
poorly clad, to the bitterest of weather. After 
the long march and incessant skirmishing with 
General Meade's army, on General Lee's flank- 



356 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ing it out of Culpepper Court-House, his regi- 
ment returned in November to its old position 
on the Rapidan, marching through sleet and 
snow, wading rivers, and undergoing all the 
hardships incident to soldiering in the Confed- 
erate ranks, to which it continued subjected in 
front of the enemy through the winter until 
January 7th, 1864, when it was detached, and 
sent back to North Carolina on special duty 
under General R. F. Hoke. In April it assisted 
in opening the spring campaign, by participating 
in the storming of the forts and breastworks at 
Plymouth, N. C, defended by General Weitzel, 
the result of which was the taking of two thou- 
sand six hundred prisoners, with large quantities 
of munitions of war. His regiment was next 
ordered to Petersburg, Va., at the time of Gen- 
eral Butler's demonstration against Richmond 
up the James river, nearly the whole of the Con- 
federate troops in Virginia being absent on the 
Spottsylvania campaign, insomuch that General 
Beauregard, in command of the defences of 
Richmond, had scarcely a full brigade at his 
disposal, and was forced to pick up detached 
bodies from every available point. The brigade 
to which his regiment belonged had conse- 
quently to perform never-ending marches and 
counter-marches, being hurried from place to 
place as the rumor of the Federal advance 
changed from one point to another. On the 
1 6th of May Beauregard attacked Butler, in 
which engagement his regiment held a very- 
exposed position, shooting away during the day 
sixty-six rounds of cartridges. It then joined 
General Lee, as he was falling back from Spott- 
sylvania, and was engaged against General 
Grant at North Anna Bridge, Hanover Junc- 
tion, Bethesda Church, and other points, losing 
heavily at all. On the 13th of June it was 
ordered to Lynchburg, for the purpose of oppos- 
ing Hunter, who threatened that city, and, 
following hiiri across the mountains to Salem, 
entered upon one of the severest campaigns of 
the war, throughout which he was present with 
his regiment, taking part in every skirmish and 
engagement in the Valley, including the battles 
of Washington City, Semcker's Ferry, Bunker 



Hill, Berryville, Kerns Town, Fisher's Hill, 
Cedar Creek, and Winchester, the regiment 
being under fire forty-one times in the course 
of the summer. While serving in the Army of 
Virginia in 1864, he was nominated for the 
Legislature of North Carolina, and, though 
unable to share in the canvass or even to present 
himself before the people, was triumphantly 
elected. On leaving his regiment to accept the 
honor thus thrust upon him, his fellow-officers, 
it should be stated, passed resolutions highly 
complimentary to him, which were published in 
the newspapers of the day. Mindful of his old 
comrades in arms, one of his first acts as a legis- 
lator was the introduction of a resolution reliev- 
ing wounded soldiers from the necessity of per- 
sonally applying at head-quarters for an exten- 
sion of their furloughs, cases of great hardship 
having occurred in which even men on crutches 
had to travel great distances to seek an exten- 
sion which should have been obtained nearer 
home. The term of his legislative service on 
this occasion was in the dark days of the Con- 
federate cause, and almost all proceedings were 
had in secret session, the records of which must 
now be sought at Washington, ' whither they 
were taken when the end had come. It was a 
time for action, not for words, and it may be 
safely said that he bore himself in a manner be- 
fitting the crisis. An extra session of the Legis- 
lature was called for April, 1865, but before 
that time Sherman's army entered the State, 
and shortly afterwards the surrender took place 
at Greensboro, N. C. At this time he was on 
his farm. 

All was now over. The Confederacy had 
collapsed, the negroes had been freed and had 
left, and, as if to deal the coup de grace to him 
in particular, Wheeler's cavalry passing through 
the country stripped him of every article of food 
and forage, leaving him and his wife, with two 
baby girls, to begin the world anew, which they 
bravely did, although his wife was totally unac- 
quainted with household work. Accepting the 
situation, they turned their backs on the past, 
and went cheerfully about the stern business of 
the present : she to her domestic duties, and he 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



357 



to the plough. For seven years he toiled early 
and late, working in the fields with such assis- 
tance as he could get, and doing himself every- 
thing required to be done on a farm, from 
making a horse-shoe to building a house. In 
the summer of 1865, he was urged to become a 
candidate for a seat in the State Convention 
ordered by President Johnson, through Gov- 
ernor Holden, but, having determined to eschew 
politics altogether, he declined, until, at length, 
yielding to the repeated solicitations of his 
friends, he consented two days before the elec- 
tion to stand for the place, and was elected by a 
considerable majority. His service in the Con- 
vention ended, he returned to the plough, and 
has since uniformly and firmly refused to accept 
any political office whatever. In 1S65 and 
1S66 he served as a magistrate, and for two 
years edited a local newspaper called " The 
Ansonian," besides conducting his farm and an 
extensive mercantile business. In 1873, tne 
Carolina Central Railroad approaching his farm, 
he built upon a tract near the line a village, 
called Polkton in his honor. He was Chairman 
of the Committee of the State Grange of North 
Carolina, and assisted in drawing the bill for the 
establishment of the Department of Agriculture, 
the passage of which, by the Legislature, he was 
deputed to promote and succeeded in effecting. 
The bill as passed provides for a Commissioner 
of Agriculture, to be elected by the State Board 
of Agriculture, to consist of the Governor of the 
State, the President of the State Agricultural 
Society, the President of the State University, 
the State Geologist, the Master of the State 
Grange, and two practical agriculturists. By 
this Board, duly organized under the law, he 
was chosen Commissioner, April 6th, 1877, and 
at once entered upon the discharge of the 
responsible duties of the office. The system of 
the department, as defined in the law, is more 
comprehensive than that of any other like 
department in the United States, and the system 
finds in him a zealous and efficient adminis- 
trator. Himself a thoroughly practical agricul- 
turist, familiar by actual experience with every 
branch of the art, and taking delight in all of 



them, the performance of his official duties is to 
him a labor of love. He has visited in the in- 
terest of his department a large number of the 
counties of the State, and has collected from 
every county of the State specimens of its pro- 
ducts, the whole of which collection is displayed 
in his office, where he is never weary in affording 
information to inquirers, in advising those who 
consult him, and in setting forth generally the 
strong claims of the old North State to the atten- 
tion of capitalists and settlers. His courtesy is 
as inexhaustible as his information, rendering 
intercourse with him not more profitable than 
pleasant. In addition to being State Commis- 
sioner of Agriculture, he is Vice-President of the 
National Emigration Bureau at Philadelphia. 
He is a member of the Baptist denomination, in 
everything tending to the interests of which he 
has always manifested a lively concern. In the 
establishment of Sunday-schools especially he 
has taken a marked interest. He has written a 
history of his old regiment, the Forty-third 
North Carolina, which he purposes shortly to 
publish in book form. From the glimpse of the 
achievements of this regiment given above, it is 
safe to infer that the volume will be an interesting 
one. 



REV. B. M. PALMER, D. D. 

Louisiana. 

ENJAMIN MORGAN PALMER was 
born January 25th, 1818, at Charleston, 
S. C. The Palmers are of English 
^3 descent both on the paternal and 
^ maternal side, and their ancestors mi- 
grated to this country in the earliest days of its 
settlement, making New England their home. 
From the earliest known records the Palmers 
have followed the clerical profession, and most 
of them have attained to a ripe old age. Rev. 
Samuel Palmer, the great grandfather of the sub- 
ject of this sketch, was a native of Barnstable, 
Mass. ; a graduate of Harvard College in 1727; 
ordained at Falmouth, Mass., in 1730; and died 
in 1775, aged sixty-eight. Job Palmer, his son, 




35§ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



emigrated from Massachusetts to South Carolina 
previous to the Revolutionary war, and settled in 
Charleston, where he died in 1845, ' n n ' s ninety- 
seventh year. He had two sons, who became 
scholars and ministers — the eldest, Rev. Benja- 
min M. Palmer, D. D., was born in Philadelphia 
while his parents were residing in that city, having 
been driven from their home in South Carolina by 
the revolutionary struggle; he was a graduate of 
Princeton; for many years pastor of the Circular 
Church, Charleston, and died in 1S47, in tne 
sixty-seventh year of his age. Edward Palmer, 
the second son of Job, married Sarah Bunce, a 
sister of his brother's (Rev. B. M. Palmer) wife, 
and after his marriage determined to study for 
the ministry. He went to Andover, Mass., 
where he entered the academy, and from thence 
went to the seminary without taking his course 
at the college ; he had attained such proficiency 
in his studies, however, that by a special appli- 
cation he was granted the degree of B. A. by 
Yale College. He returned to South Carolina 
and commenced his ministry at Dorchester, 
about twenty-four miles from Charleston ; after 
some years he removed to Walterboro, S. C.., 
where, and in the Beaufort District, he has since 
resided. He is still living (1879), anc ^ nl h's 
ninety-first year preaches regularly every Sab- 
bath. Benjamin Morgan Palmer, his son, passed 
his childhood in a country district where there 
were no schools. His mother took charge of his 
early education, and laid the foundation for a 
sound English education. When his parents 
removed to Walterboro he was enabled to avail 
himself of the schools of that town, and hav- 
ing mastered all they could teach him, it was 
determined, though at the unusually early age 
of fourteen, to send him to one of the Northern 
colleges. Accordingly, in 1S32, he entered 
Amherst College, Massachusetts, where he spent 
part of two years. He was the only student from 
South Carolina at that time in the college, and 
party feeling running high among the students 
as well as their elders, his position became one 
of much discomfort, and although he had almost 
completed his sophomore year, he returned 
home in 1834, and spent the two following 



years in teaching. At the commencement of 
1S37 he entered the University of Georgia, 
at Athens, in the junior class, and graduated 
thence with distinction in August, 1S3S. 

On the 1st of January, 1839, he entered the 
theological seminary at Columbia, S. C, and 
remained there until he had completed the divin- 
ity course. He was licensed to preach the 
gospel by the Presbytery of Charleston, April, 
1S41, and finally left the theological seminary 
in July of that year. He commenced his min- 
istry at Anderson, S. C, and, after three months, 
removed to Savannah, Ga., in answer to a call 
from the First Presbyterian Church of that city. 
In the spring of 1S42 he was ordained, and 
installed pastor of that church by the Presbytery 
of Georgia, but his pastoral relation was dis- 
solved in the winter of that year by his accept- 
ance of a call from the Presbyterian Church of 
Columbia, S. C, to which he removed in the 
beginning of 1843. I n 1S47, m association with 
the Rev. Drs. Thornwell, Howe, Smythe, and 
others, he was one of the projectors and editors 
of the Southern Presbyterian Review, an influ- 
ential religious quarterly published at Columbia, 
S. C, which has maintained an uninterrupted 
existence through a period of thirty-two years to 
the present time. In 1852 the Oglethorpe 
University, of Georgia, conferred upon him the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1853, 
while still in charge of the Presbyterian Church 
at Columbia, he became Professor of Ecclesiast- 
ical History and Church Polity in the Theo- 
logical Seminary at Columbia, and filled the 
two offices conjointly until the close of 1S56. 
During a visit to the Southwest, in the winter of 
1S55, in the interest of the theological semi- 
nary, he had been brought into contact with the 
First Presbyterian Church of New Orleans, then 
vacant by the removal to California of its former 
pastor, Rev. Dr. Scott. Protracted negotiations 
ensued, which resulted in his accepting a call 
to that church, of which he was installed pastor 
in December, 1S56. 

Although thoroughly identified with the " Old 
School" of the Presbyterian Church, he was too 
young to take part in the memorable contro- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



359 



versy which led to the disruption of the Old and 
New Schools, in 1837. His sympathies, how- 
ever, were from the first strongly enlisted on the 
side of a strict construction of the Constitution 
of the church, and he participated in the discus- 
sions in opposition to the Boards and on the 
elder question. He passed a quiet novitiate, 
and about the year 1853 began to acquire that 
reputation which has since made him the most 
influential and widely known divine in the 
Southern Presbyterian church. He received 
numberless calls, many of them from the large 
centres of population in the East and West — 
three or four from Philadelphia, several from 
Cincinnati, and other cities — and was several 
times a delegate to the General Assembly. 

Although taking but little part in politics, he 
entertained strong views on the more important 
political questions of the day, and, as in the 
church, was a stickler for a strict interpretation 
of the Constitution. Too young to take part in 
the nullification agitation, by which his native 
State was stirred to its depths, he was an earnest 
supporter of the secession movement. Though 
deprecating under ordinary circumstances the 
interposition of the clergy in political questions, 
he rightly considered that in the latter part of 
i860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected to 
the Presidency on a purely sectional issue, the 
crisis had come when every patriotic Southerner 
should speak out with no uncertain sound, at a 
time when the liberties and the destiny of a 
great people were in peril. In a sermon deliv- 
ered in the First Presbyterian Church of New 
Orleans on Thursday, December 29th, i860, 
Thanksgiving Day, he says: "Is it immodest in 
me to assume that I may represent a class whose 
opinions in such a controversy are of cardinal 
importance — -the class which seeks to ascertain 
its duty in the light simply of conscience and 
religion, and which turns to the moralist and 
the Christian for support and guidance ? The 
question, too, which now places us upon the 
brink of revolution was, in its origin, a question 
of morals and religion. It was debated in 
ecclesiastical councils before it entered legislative 
halls. It has riven asunder the two largest re- 



ligious communions in the land ; and the right 
determination of this primary question will go far 
toward fixing the attitude we must assume in the 
coming struggle. I sincerely pray God that I 
may be forgiven if I have misapprehended the 
duty incumbent upon me to-day ; for I have 
ascended this pulpit under the agitation of feel- 
ing natural to one who is about to deviate from 
the settled policy of his public life. It is my 
purpose — not as your organ compromising you, 
whose opinions are, for the most part, unknown 
to me, but on my sole responsibility — to speak 
upon the one question of the day ; and to state 
the duty which, as I believe, patriotism and 
religion alike require of us all. ... As it 
appears to me, the course to be pursued in 
this emergency is that which has already been 
inaugurated. Let the people in all the Southern 
States in solemn counsel assembled reclaim the 
powers they have delegated. Let those conven- 
tions be composed of men whose fidelity has 
been approved — men who bring the wisdom, 
experience and firmness of age to support and 
announce principles which have long been 
matured. Let these conventions decide firmly 
and solemnly what they will do with this great 
trust committed to their hands. Let them 
pledge each other, in sacred covenant, to uphold 
and perpetuate what they cannot resign without 
dishonor and palpable ruin. Let them further 
take all the necessary steps looking to separate 
and independent existence, and initiate measures 
for framing a new and homogeneous confed- 
eracy. 

Thus prepared for every contingency, let 
the crisis come. Paradoxical as it may seem, 
if there be any way to save, or rather to recon- 
struct the Union of our forefathers, it is this. 
.... It only remains to say that, whatever be 
the fortunes of the South, I accept them for my 
own. Born upon her soil, of a father thus born 
before me — from an ancestry that occupied it 
while yet it was a part of England's possessions 
— she is in every sense my mother. I shall die 
upon her bosom; she shall know no peril but it 
is my peril — no conflict but it is my conflict — 
and no abyss of ruin into which I shall not share 



;6o 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



her fall. May the Lord God cover her head in 
this her day of battle!" 

This sermon created a profound sensation, 
and opened his hearers' eyes to the imminence of 
the danger and the necessity of being prepared to 
meet it. The breaking out of the war developed 
a fierce political spirit among the Old School 
Presbyterians in the Northern States, and at the 
meeting of the General Assembly in Philadel- 
phia, in the spring of 1861, a resolution was 
passed declaring "its obligation to strengthen, 
uphold, and encourage the Federal govern- 
ment," and professing its " unabated loyalty to 
the Constitution," as interpreted by the Fed- 
eral government, carefully defining this to be 
" that Central Administration," existing at any 
given time. This resolution, introduced by Dr. 
Spring, of New York, rendered it obligatory on 
all ministers, Southern as well as Northern, to 
take the side of the Federal government in the 
impending struggle; and, as it was impossible 
that those in the South, whose sympathies 
almost to a man were with their section, should 
do this, a rupture was inevitable. This led to 
the organization of the Southern Presbyterian 
Church, in which Dr. Palmer took a promi- 
nent part. The first General Assembly met in 
Augusta, Ga., in December, 1S61; Dr. Palmer 
was chosen Moderator and opened the proceed- 
ings with a sermon. This Assembly represented 
forty-seven presbyteries scattered through eleven 
Southern synods, and the grounds of their sep- 
aration from the Northern Church were set 
forth by the Rev. Dr. Thorn well in a paper 
entitled "An Address to all the Churches of 
Jesus Christ throughout the Earth." The fol- 
lowing extracts show the grounds of their sepa- 
ration, and the views of the Southern Presbyterian 
Church on the question of slavery : 

' ' We have separated from our brethren of the 
North as Abraham separated from Lot — because 
we are persuaded that the interests of true 
religion will be more effectually subserved by 
two independent churches, under the circum- 
stances in which the two countries are placed, 
than by one united body. In the first place 
the course of the last Assembly at Philadelphia 



conclusively shows that if we should remain 
together, the political questions which divide 
113 as citizens will be obtruded on our church 
courts, and discussed by Christian ministers and 
elders, with all the acrimony, bitterness and 
rancor with which such questions are usually 
discussed by men of the world. . . . An As- 
sembly composed of representatives from two 
such countries could have no security for peace, 
except in a steady, uncompromising adherence 
to the scriptural principle that it would know 
no man after the flesh; that it would abolish the 
distinctions of Barbarian and Scythian, bond and 
free, and recognize nothing but the new creature 
in Christ Jesus. The moment it permits itself 
to know the Confederate or the United States; 
the moment its members meet as citizens of those 
countries, our political differences will be trans- 
ferred to the house of God, and the passions of 
the forum will expel the spirit of holy love and 
of Christian communion. . . . We have never 
confounded Caesar and Christ; and we have 
never mixed the issues of this world with the 
weighty matters that properly belong to us as 
citizens of the kingdom of God. . . . We would 
have it distinctly understood that in our ecclesi- 
astical capacity we are neither the friends nor 
the foes of slavery — that is to say, we have no 
commission either to propagate or abolish it. 
The policy of its existence or non-existence is a 
question which exclusively belongs to the State. 
We have no right, as a church, to enjoin it as a 
duty, or to condemn it as a sin. Our business 
is with the duties which spring from the relation 
— the duties of the masters on the one hand, and 
of the slaves on the other. These duties we are 
to proclaim and to enforce with spiritual sanc- 
tions. The social, civil, political problems con- 
nected with this great subject transcend our 
sphere; as God has not intrusted to His church 
the organization of society, the construction of 
governments, nor the allotment of individuals to 
their various stations." 

In May, 1862, when New Orleans fell into the 
hands of the Federal forces, Dr. Palmer was in 
attendance on the session of the General As- 
sembly of (he Southern Presbyterian Church, at 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



361 



Montgomery, Ala., r.nd did not return to the j 
former city until the summe- of 1865. He made 
his home in Columbia, S. C, and, though he 
held no regular commission, spent a considerable 
portion of each year in preaching to the Western 
army, moving about from point to point as the 
exigencies of the war demanded, and returning 
to Columbia during the sessions of the theologi- 
cal seminary, of which he was the Provisional 
Professor of Theology, in place of Rev. Dr. 
Thornwell, his intimate friend, who died in 
August, 1862. 

The war over, he returned to New Orleans, 
where he has since resided, exerting his power- 
ful influence for the advancement of his church 
and for the best interests of his fellow-citizens. 
In May, 1869, the Old School Northern Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian Church made overtures 
for reunion with the Southern church, which led 
to a review of the whole question in a series of 
articles published in the Southwestern Presbyte- 
rian under the signature of " Presbyter," a nom 
de plume adopted by Dr. Palmer. With scath- 
ing irony he exposes the political character of 
the Northern church, its sycophancy to the 
Federal government, its tyrannical character, its 
slanders against the Southern church, and its 
tendency to imperialism. It would be impos- 
sible, in the space at our disposal, to give, in 
sufficient detail to be understood, the various 
deliverances of the Northern church during the 
four years of the war, in which the Southern 
church was charged with treason, rebellion, an- 
archy, fraud, disloyalty, schism, disturbance, 
conspiracy, etc., etc. In 1865, shortly after 
the cessation of hostilities, and when the South 
lay panting and bleeding under the heel of the 
conqueror, it might be supposed that a more 
Christian spirit would prevail in the Northern 
church towards their Southern brethren; but, 
on the contrary, nothing was seen but the flush 
of fierce exultation in the hour of triumph, and 
not a whisper was heard but of vindictive retri- 
bution. We find the Northern Assembly of that 
year adopting a policy exactly similar to that of 
the government towards the seceded States. As 
the government claimed the right to coerce the 



seceded States back into the Union, so the 
church would coerce the " schismatical " pres- 
byteries back into their old ecclesiastical fellow- 
ship. And precisely the same measures of re- 
construction were proposed in the church which 
had worked so awkwardly in the State, viz. : a 
wholesale disfranchisement of all who were sus- 
pected of disloyalty, and the erection of petty 
minorities in churches and church courts, into 
churches and courts in whom all the rights and 
franchises of a true succession were to vest ; and 
if this scheme of disintegration did not generally 
succeed, the failure was due to the wonderful 
unanimity of the members of the Southern 
church, presenting so few fissures in which to 
drive the wedge of division and strife. 

As we are writing a biographical sketch of a 
gentleman representing the opinions of a large 
and important class, fairness demands that we 
should present the facts from his own stand- 
point ; and accordingly we make the following 
extracts from Dr. Palmer's articles, representing 
the views of the Southern church on the question 
of slavery, for which they were so vindictively 
arraigned by their Northern brethren : 

"Slavery, as one of the many forms of human 
servitude, we have always regarded as one of the 
consequences of the Fall. Evolving itself out 
of the curse of labor, pronounced upon man for 
the primary transgression, it is simply one of 
those adjustments of Divine Providence by which 
the necessary subordination in human society is 
in part secured. In a state of society absolutely 
perfect, and amongst beings themselves abso- 
lutely sinless, slavery, we suppose, would not 
exist. We cannot conceive of it, for example, 
as an element of the society in heaven. But it 
is the sad mistake of those philanthropic vision- 
aries to legislate for a condition of things purely 
ideal, such as never can be realized in a fallen 
world, making 'confusion worse confounded,' 
and establishing universal anarchy in the stead 
of the imaginary perfection which is the dream 
of their fancy. We, on the contrary, accept the 
stubborn fact that ours is a sinful race, placed 
here under the discipline of a wise and just gov- 
ernment; whose method is not to take evil out 



362 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of the world, but to transform it, cou/erting it 
into a stupendous educational system, softening 
and sanctifying it into an ultimate blessing. We 
do not profess to understand fhe vast and com- 
plex machinery of Divine Providence, with its 
immense adjustments and compensations, by 
which one form of evil is set over against an- 
other, mutually limiting and mutually control- 
ling; and all in subordination to the purposes 
of Infinite mercy and love, gradually disciplin- 
ing a sinful race to a higher and more glorious 
destiny. But we can adore where we cannot 
comprehend. We can admire that combined 
wisdom and grace which takes poverty and 
pain, and weakness and disease, and sorrow and 
death, transforming them all into a mighty 
and loving discipline for good. This, then, is 
the 'category,' if our adversaries will deign to 
believe us, in which we place slavery. One of 
the processes by which a just, yet beneficent, 
Providence disciplines and trains sinful man is 
servitude ; and one of the many forms in which 
that servitude is allowed to shape itself is slavery. 
At the very opening of history, after the deluge, 
we meet the mysterious decree of Jehovah, which 
doomed a portion of the race to servitude ; a 
doom from which, through the whole tract of 
succeeding history, they were never extracted ; 
and which seems to have the power of drawing 
within its dark shadow even those who would be 
their guardians and protectors. . . . Within the 
sixty years which have elapsed since the aboli- 
tion of the African slave trade, a race of wild 
and naked savages has been lifted to a degree 
of knowledge and virtue which, in the estima- 
tion of our Northern brethren, justifies them in 
packing these new-born freedmen into our Leg- 
islatures and courts, to enact and expound the 
laws under which we live. It is the highest en- 
comium they could pronounce upon the value 
of slavery as a grand educational and disciplin- 
ary system. And though we think they slightly 
overestimate the benefits this system has con- 
ferred, we agree with them so far as to believe 
that the world may safely be challenged to 
produce a like example, in which a barbarous 
people, at the very lowest [joint of human degra- 



dation, has been civilized, refined and Chris- 
tianized in so short a time. ... As respects tlr". 
Christian sentiment of the South, it regarded 
slavery in the light of a great and solemn trust. 
Pharisaic Puritanism will of course indulge in 
its usual pious sneer at the statement. Still we 
will put it on record, that a Christian people 
could not construe the providence which called 
them to receive into their homes four million 
of an alien, a barbarous and heathen race, but 
as a commission from God to educate them for 
eternity and heaven. With some measure of fi- 
delity the Southern church devoted herself to 
this great duty : a fidelity which the Northern 
Assembly itself has more than once seen fit to 
mention in terms of honorable praise, and which 
has received the signet of the Divine approval in 
the blessing that has accompanied these labors, 
and in the large results accruing from them. So 
long as this trust was continued to us in the 
working of a mysterious Providence, just so long 
it was to be cherished and its sacred duties ful- 
filled. The infidel humanitarianism which 'op- 
posed and exalted itself above all that is called 
God, or that is worshipped,' was stoutly resisted 
when it proclaimed its ' higher law ' ah ove the 
teachings of Divine Revelation. Slavery being 
the object of its assault, had to be religiously 
defended; not so much for its own sake, but 
because it was the battle-field on which must be 
fought that peculiar and subtle infidelity of 
modern times which was seeking to undermine 
the foundations of Christianity itself. But no 
sooner did the issues of war settle the question 
of the continuance of slavery, than the Christian 
heart of the South accepted the solution of this 
vast problem which Providence itself afforded. 
We are now, by the hand of God, discharged 
from the trust which had previously been equally 
difficult to fulfil and perilous to let go. Not- 
withstanding the fact that three-fifths of our 
property was virtually confiscated by the stroke 
of the pen which decreed emancipation, with 
the additional loss of another fifth in the depre- 
ciation of our landed estates, yet in all this 
widespread financial ruin not a whimper of 
complaint has been heard from Southern lips. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



363 



Slavery was one of the stakes of the war; the 
decision of the sword was against us, and our 
people accepted without a murmur the result of 
the struggle. They were too manly to whine 
over what was irreparable, and took poverty to 
their bosom as though it were a bride. The 
piety of the South went deeper. It acknowl- 
edged the hand of God in cutting the knot, the 
most vexatious of the age; and in freeing it from 
all the responsibilities of a trust which must be 
' conserved ' so long as it remained, and from 
which there could be no discharge but through 
the omnipotence of his own will. Whether the 
negro race can properly use the privileges of that 
freedom upon which they have been so suddenly 
precipitated — whether the degeneracy in char- 
acter now so apparent will be confined to a 
brief and transitional period — whether they can 
ever be educated, even by the forced culture to 
which they are now subjected, to a due appreci- 
ation of their duties and franchises — are ques- 
tions which Ave will not ,in this connection 
discuss. We would not so much as embarrass 
the outworking of this problem by the expression 
of an unfavorable opinion. We are the friends 
of the black man now, as we were his guardians 
and protectors before ; we wish him well in his 
new career, and, so far. as may be consistent 
with the higher duty and respect which we owe 
to our own race, we would help him onward in 
the ascending path to usefulness, happiness and 
honor. So far as in us lies, we would retain 
him under the influence of a pure and whole- 
some Christianity, and prevent his relapse into 
the fetishism of his pagan ancestors. But what- 
ever his destiny may be, we are clear to say for 
ourselves, that, were it in our power to accom- 
plish his return to bondage by the simple turn- 
ing over of the hand, that hand would lie 
unmoved upon the table which is before us. 
'Is he made free? let him use it rather,' and 
'abide in the calling wherein he is called.' 
Nor is this a singular crotchet of the writer 
alone; we are very sure that the entire virtue 
and intelligence of the South agree in this ver- 
dict. With perfect consistency the most earnest 
pro-slavery advocates in the South, who con- 



tended for the conservation of slavery while the 
institution existed, consent to be divested of all 
its grave responsibilities as soon as the institu- 
tion is destroyed, without the intervention of 
their agency." 

The long-pending negotiations between the 
Old and New Schools, North, culminated, in 
November, 1869, in the fusion of the two 
bodies, and consequently no reply was possible 
to the overture of the Old School Church, 
North, as it had no longer a separate corporate 
existence, and survived only as a constituent 
part of a new and larger body. At the meeting 
of the General Assembly of the Southern Pres- 
byterian Church, at Louisville, Ky., in May, 
1870, this overture was renewed from the re- 
united General Assembly of the Presbyterian 
Church in the United States of America, then 
in session in Philadelphia. The matter was re- 
ferred to the Committee on Foreign Correspond- 
ence, of which Dr. Palmer was the Chairman, 
who decided that, as long as the injurious accu- 
sations preferred against the whole Southern 
Presbyterian Church remained on record, they 
were an impassable barrier to official inter- 
course. A pastoral letter, in explanation of this 
action, was prepared by Dr. Paimer, and a copy 
sent to every minister and every ruling elder in 
the church. Some years later a further overture 
was made by the reunited Northern church, and 
committees were appointed on either side to 
ascertain if the matter would admit of adjust- 
ment. The Committee of Conference, of which 
Dr. Palmer was a member, met at Baltimore, 
but no satisfactory result was arrived at ; similar 
overtures have been made from time to time 
since that conference, but the matter has now 
been finally dropped on both sides, without any 
agreement being reached. The Southern church 
had no desire to exact any humiliating confes- 
sion from their Northern brethren, but simply 
desired that they should express regret for the 
offensive expressions used in a time of great 
political excitement. In September, 1875, a 
lengthy correspondence took place between Rev. 
Dr. H. A. Nelson, of Geneva, N. Y., and Dr. B. 
M. Palmer, upon the relations subsisting between 



3 6 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the Northern and the Southern Presbyterian 
Churches. The correspondence was conducted 
in the best possible spirit, and as representing 
the opinions of representative men on both sides 
of the question, was published in the Southwest- 
ern Presbyterian. 

At the outset Dr. Palmer combats Dr. Nel- 
son's assertion, that the war between the sec- 
tions was "an effort to establish a national 
organization and government which should pro- 
tect and secure slavery," as follows: 

"The popular judgment that slavery was in 
any sense the cause of the late war, is one which 
history will replace — whenever she shall assume 
her judicial function, and revise the errors which 
are occasioned by looking at the surface appear- 
ance of things. It was the occasion of the war — 
the concrete and tangible issue which could be 
put before the masses on both sides, the rallying 
cry by which the forces could be marshalled into 
battle. For the cause we must look a great deal 
deeper, into that fundamental difference of 
opinion which obtained, from the beginning of 
the Republic, as to the nature of our complex 
government and the relation which the original 
States sustained to the central power which they 
themselves created." 

In answer to Dr. Nelson's inquiry as to 
whether the Cleveland resolution which "affirms 
unequivocally its confidence in the integrity and 
Christian character of our brethren of the South- 
ern church, comes short of what you think be- 
coming in us, or due to you," Dr. Palmer 
points out that the Southern church "would 
never have disturbed your serenity with any 
demand for justice, or for anything else, except 
at your own constant appeal." That the Balti- 
more Conference Committee had explicitly 
stated, "We desire that the imputations which 
we conceive to be resting upon our church, by 
the acts of your Assembly, should be removed — 
we care not in what terms, so they directly and 
fairly cover the case. If your Assembly could 
see its way clear to say in a few plain words, to 
this effect, that these obnoxious things were said 
and done in times of great excitement, that they 
are to be regretted ; and that now, in a calm re- 



view, the imputations cast upon the Southern 
church are disapproved — this would end the 
difficulty at once." And that " there the mat- 
ter must rest until your body can feel free to re- 
move the aspersions, which, because they affect 
our integrity and honor, disable us from official 
intercourse with it." 

Dr. Palmer has been a voluminous contributor 
to the Southern Presbyterian Review, and is the 
author of "Life and Letters of James Henley 
Thornwell, D. D.," pp. 614, Richmond, 1875. 
"The Family — in its Civil and Churchly As- 
pects, an Essay in two parts," pp. 291, Rich- 
mond, 1876. "Sermons," published in weekly 
numbers and forming two volumes, pp. 650 and 
478, New Orleans, 1S75. A number of his 
addresses and lectures have been published in 
pamphlet form, among which may be mentioned 
"The Tribunal of History," a lecture delivered 
before the Historical Society of New Orleans, 
1S72; "The Present Crisis and its Issues;" an 
address delivered a£ the Washington and Lee 
University, Lexington, Va., 1872. 

He was married October 7th, 1S41, to Mary 
A. McConnell, daughter of Dr. McConnell, a 
physician of Liberty county, Ga. Of six chil- 
dren five died, leaving but one daughter living, 
the wife of Dr. J. W. Caldwell, Professor of 
Natural Science in the Southwestern Presbyte- 
rian University, Clarksville, Tenn. 



L. A. 




DUGAS, M. D. 
Georgia. 



OUIS ALEXANDER DUGAS was 
born January 3d, 1S06, in Washing- 
ton, Wilkes county, Ga., and is the 
son of Louis Rene Adrien Dugas de 
Vallon. The De Vallons were of 
French West-Indian descent, emigrating from 
France some two generations ago to St. Do- 
mingo, where they became wealthy planters. 
His father, although born in St. Domingo, re- 
sided constantly in Paris, where his ample for- 
tune enabled him to gratify his literary tastes ; 
Ik- was a gentleman of large and varied informa- 




'-'"'■•-. Xcl-sju. Pu'r ^'" ia 



a^t^Jj ^/: 



%S7*^y£^7 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



365 



tion, and had graduated in the law besides ac- 
quiring great proficiency in the sciences. His 
mother, Mary Pauline Bellumeau de la Vincen- 
diere, was a native of St. Domingo, where her 
parents had been wealthy planters for genera- 
tions, but always educating their children in 
Paris, and it was there she met M. de Vallon 
and married him, in August, 1790. A gentle- 
man of leisure and cultivated tastes — one of the 
old regime — had few inducements to remain in 
France in those troublous times, and accordingly 
M. de Vallon and his wife left for St. Domingo 
to settle on their plantation, where generations 
of their ancestors had preceded them. They 
had not been long there, however, before the 
revolution in the parent country extended itself 
to the colony and resulted in the emancipation 
of the blacks, driving them with an infant 
daughter and but slender pecuniary means to 
seek refuge in the United States. They landed 
in Charleston, S. C, in 1791, and in deference 
to the republican simplicity of the land of their 
adoption dropped the " de Vallon" from their 
name and were henceforth simply Dugas. After 
about a year's residence in Georgetown, S. C, 
they removed to Newport, R. I., where they 
remained until 1801, when they removed to 
Fredericktown, Maryland, where his maternal 
grandmother, who had been compelled to fly 
from St. Domingo, had bought a large estate 
stocked with negroes. One of Dr. Dugas' 
maternal aunts was the mother of Governor 
Enoch Louis Lowe, a governor of Maryland 
previous to the war. At the outbreak of hos- 
tilities the Federal authorities in Maryland com- 
menced high-handed proceedings against all sus- 
pected of sympathy with the South, arresting 
and imprisoning influential citizens on mere 
suspicion, and keeping them in gaol for in- 
definite periods without attempt at trial or 
chance of release. Ex-Governor Lowe being a 
strong Southern sympathizer and consequently 
sure to incur the suspicion of the authorities, fled 
South, and took up his abode for some time with 
his cousin, Dr. Dugas. 

After about three years' residence in Maryland 
Dr. Dugas' parents left for Savannah in search of 



a warmer climate, and in 1S04 finally settled in 
Washington, Wilkes county, Ga., where Dr. L. 
A. Dugas was born, with a twin-brother, Louis 
Charles, who was afterwards a planter, and died 
in 1866. Their means being exhausted, his 
mother, who was a most cultivated and accom- 
plished lady, opened a female seminary in Wash- 
ington, but his father dying in 1807, the place 
became distasteful to her, and in December, 18 10, 
she removed to Augusta, where she established a 
similar institution, and was so successful as to 
bring up and educate her family and ultimately 
to accumulate a competency which enabled her to 
dispense with teaching in her advanced age. She 
was a lady of great talents and unusual acquire- 
ments, and herself educated all her children, so 
that Dr. Dugas' education was conducted exclu- 
sively by his mother until he was fifteen years of 
age, with the exception of two or three quarters 
passed at the academy of Richmond county. 
She had the proud satisfaction of living to see 
the prosperity of her children, and finally termi- 
nated an eventful existence in 1854, being then 
eighty-three years of age. 

About this time Dr. Charles Lambert de 
Beauregard, a French emigre, who had origi- 
nally settled in Canada and afterwards removed 
to Philadelphia, arrived in Augusta, and, be- 
coming intimate with the Dugas family, offered 
to take charge of Louis Alexander and give him 
a medical education. Accordingly, in 1820, he 
entered Dr. de Beauregard's office as a student, 
but being too young to confine his attention to 
his medical studies, seized the opportunity to 
enrich his mind with an extensive course of 
general reading. Dr. de Beauregard died in 
1822, and in the following year he entered the 
office of Dr. John Dent, a man of great genius 
and ability, and devoted himself to the study of 
his profession for two years. He then went to 
the University of Maryland and attended a . 
winter course of lectures, from there to Phila- 
delphia to attend a summer course of lectures at 
the Philadelphia Medical Institute. Returning 
to Baltimore for a second winter course he was 
graduated at the University of Maryland, in 
March, 1827. The medical department of that 



3 66 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



university was then considered the best school 
in the country ; its leading men were Professors 
Pattison, Potter, Davidge and De Butts, while 
the most able at the Philadelphia Institute were 
Professors Chapman, Jackson, Hodge, Mitchell 
and Horner. In addition to the lectures, he 
faithfully attended the hospitals, and the more 
he learned the more deeply he felt the responsi- 
bility of the practitioner, and the more firmly 
was he resolved to perfect himself in the Euro- 
pean schools. 

The following year was spent on the planta- 
tion of a friend of the family in Georgia, where 
he was enabled to pursue his studies in perfect 
quiet and without fear of interruption. In the 
spring of 1828 he sailed for Europe, where he 
remained upwards of three years, during which 
he made himself thoroughly acquainted with 
England, France, Switzerland, Germany and 
Italy, but making Paris his head-quarters. There 
he devoted himself with persistent energy to his 
medical studies, devoting sixteen hours of each 
day to different branches of science, and so 
methodically arranging his time, alternating the 
severer with the more attractive branches of 
study, as to ensure constant interest and avoid 
weariness. The mornings were devoted to the 
hospitals, following the professor on his visits to 
his patients and attending the surgical opera- 
tions, post-mortem examinations, etc. ; while the 
afternoons were spent at the Sarbonne attending 
the full course of lectures of such a galaxy of 
talent as Gay Lussac and Thenard on Chemis- 
try, Pouillet on Physics, Arago on Astronomy, 
Cuvier, Blainville and Geoffroy St. Hilaire on 
Natural History, Beaumont on Geology, Ma- 
gendie on Physiology, Boyet, Roux and Velpeau 
on Surgery, Dupuytren and Lesfranc on Clinical 
Surgery, Guersent on the Diseases of Children, 
Cousin on Philosophy, Villemain on Eloquence 
and Criticism, and Guizot on the History of 
Civilization. The lectures of the last three, and 
more especially of Guizot, created extraordinary 
interest and enthusiasm, crowds of all classes 
flocking to drink deep of the brilliant logic and 
fascinating eloquence which was soon to stir 
France to its depths and once more sweep the 



Bourbons from the throne. Each class of affec- 
tions, and each department of science was 
studied separately and thoroughly, and besides 
these private courses were attended to perfect 
him in the details of his profession. He also 
attended the lectures of Baron Larrey, Dubois, 
Alibert, Biett, Lugol, Broussais, Andral, Louis, 
Chomel, Orfila,.etc., etc. As a graduate of an 
American college he had free access on produc- 
tion of his diploma, to all the medical colleges 
and hospitals as well as to the Sarbonne. 

During his stay in Paris he witnessed the great 
change from the deteriorating plan of treatment 
in disease so strenuously advocated by Broussais, 
to the conservative system so successfully inau- 
gurated by Andral, Louis, Rostan and others, 
and to which Dr. Dugas was an enthusiastic 
adherent. He also saw the inauguration of the 
Civiale system of lithotrity (crushing the stone 
in the bladder), and witnessed the full develop- 
ment of that method of treatment. He was 
present in Paris during the Revolution of July, 
1830, and was in the crowd at the Palais Royal 
when the troops first charged the people, and 
saw the first man killed. In June, 1831, he re- 
turned to America and commenced the practice 
of his profession in Augusta, Ga. Soon after 
his arrival the propriety of establishing a medi- 
cal academy was mooted by Dr. Anthony, who 
asked Dr. Dugas to join him ; this he agreed to 
do if the charter were altered to that of a medi- 
cal college, and in 1832 the Medical College of 
Georgia was founded and organized with Dr. 
Milton Anthony, Dr. Louis D. Ford, Dr. Joseph 
A. Eve, Dr. Paul F. Eve, Dr. John Dent and 
Dr. L. A. Dugas in the various chairs, the latter 
first taking that of Anatomy and Physiology; 
he some years afterwards yielded that of Anat- 
omy to Dr. George M. Newton and taught Phy« 
siology added to Pathological Anatomy until 
1855, when he took the Chair of the Principles 
and Practice of Surgery, which he still holds. 

In 1834 he again visited Europe for the pur- 
pose of purchasing the library and general out- 
fit for the museum of the college. Each of the 
members of the faculty contributed $1,000, and 
for this sum, $6,000, he was enabled, by his 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



367 



previous acquaintance with Parisian collectors, 
to obtain a fine museum, and was fortunate in 
securing, among other choice specimens, a 
" cyclops," probably the finest example of that 
rare phenomenon, which could be readily sold 
for $1,000 to the British Museum to-day. In 
the library are some rare and valuable works not 
often found in collections of the kind. While 
in Paris he was elected a member of the Geologi- 
cal Society of France. He returned to America 
in the fall of 1834. and resumed general practice 
in Augusta, giving, however, special attention 
to surgery. In 1851 he again took a trip to 
Europe, visiting the first World's Fair at the 
Crystal Palace, in Hyde Park, London, and 
travelling afterwards on the continent. In the 
same year he assumed editorial supervision of 
the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, p- - 1 ~- 
lished in Augusta, holding that position for 
seven years and making voluminous contribu- 
tions to its pages. 

While he never doubted the right of the 
Southern States to secede, he was utterly opposed 
to secession as unwise and necessarily destruc- 
tive, whether successful or not, of the best in- 
terests of the country. At the outbreak of the 
civil war, having a strong objection to military 
control, he went as volunteer surgeon with Gen- 
eral Walker commanding the Georgia troops, 
who was ordered to Savannah, and served with 
his brigade as long as it remained on the coast. 
He was subsequently appointed Consulting Sur- 
geon to several of the military hospitals located 
in Augusta. Dr. Dugas has been intimately 
connected with the educational system of his 
native State, having been a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the Academy of Richmond 
County for about forty years, and President of 
that body for the last twenty-five years, regularly 
attending all its meetings, and presiding at the 
commencement services held at the Opera 
House in 1878, when the first diplomas were 
awarded. The Academy of Richmond County 
is one of the oldest educational establishments 
on this continent, having been established and 
endowed by George the Third, and afterwards 
incorporated by the Legislature of Georgia in 



1784. In 1S69 the University of Georgia con- 
ferred on Dr. Dugas the degree of LL. D. Be- 
sides membership in a number of literary and 
scientific bodies, he was for many years Presi- 
dent of the Medical Society of Augusta, and has 
been three times elected to the Presidency of 
the Medical Association of Georgia; he was also 
one of the Vice-Presidents of the International 
Medical Congress held in Philadelphia in 1876. 
During the war he was President of the Augusta 
Insurance and Banking Company. He has been 
repeatedly elected a member of the City Council 
of Augusta, and while occupying that position 
was instrumental in securing the erection of a 
monument over the remains of the three revolu- 
tionary patriots, Lyman Hall, George Walton, 
and Button Gwinnett, who were signers of the 
Declaration of Independence. In an old field 
belonging to the doctor he discovered some old 
tombs which on inspection proved to be those 
of Lyman Hall and some of his family ; upon 
this he brought the matter before the City 
Council, and induced them to agree to erect a 
monument over the remains, providing the bodies 
of Walton and Gwinnett could be traced and 
identified. Judge Holt after minute search 
found the remains of George Walton in Rosney 
Cemetery, and the body was identified from the 
fact that one of the legs had been broken and 
reunited, a circumstance which was known to 
have happened to Walton in his lifetime. No 
trace could then, or has since, been found of 
Gwinnett. Dr. Dugas, having been appointed 
Chairman of a committee to procure designs for 
a suitable monument, put himself in communi- 
cation with several leading architects in New 
York, and having selected a design, a classical 
and appropriate monument of Georgia granite 
was erected to their memory in Greene street, 
opposite the City Hall. The design and work- 
ing plans for the monument were generously 
furnished by the architect free of cost. Dr. 
Dugas has been President of the Augusta Gas 
Light Company for the past twenty-five years. 
In the practice of his profession he has treated 
thirty cases of urinary calculus, four of which 
were successfully subjected to lithotrity, and is 



3 6S 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the only surgeon who has performed this opera- 
tion in Georgia or in any State south of Vir- 
ginia ; he is also the only surgeon in the United 
States who has performed ligature of the Ischiatic 
artery for aneurism. 

Dr. Dugas' contributions to medical litera- 
ture have been published chiefly in the Southern 
Medical and Surgical Journal, of Augusta, Ga. 
The following, among numerous others which 
have appeared in that journal, will be found 
to contain original views, more or less interest- 
ing, viz. : 

"On the Pathology and Treatment of Rheu- 
matism: " advocating J. K. Mitchell's views con- 
cerning its connection with "spinal irritation," 
and establishing the different forms of the dis- 
ease, viz. : isf. Acute articula or arthritic rheu- 
matism, which is a self-limited disease of one 
joint alone, never recurs, and yields to no 
known treatment ; id. Acute neuralgic rheuma- 
tism, with high fever, affecting a number of 
joints, but quite amenable to spinal revulsives; 
3/. Chronic neuralgic rheumatism, without 
fever, yields readily to spinal revulsives, but 
very apt to recur, vols. 1836 and 1861. "New 
Treatment of Purulent Ophthalmia of Infants: " 
cases illustrating the happy results obtained by 
use of Labaraque's solution of Chloride of Soda, 
the cure is usually effected in a week, vol. 1836. 
" Colica Pictonum:" remarks on the connec- 
tion between this disease and spinal irritation, 
sustained by cases promptly relieved by revul- 
sives to the spine, vols. 1836-37. "Tapping for 
Hydrocephalus: " case in which tapping was 
performed between the parietal bones seven 
times, drawing off sixty-three ounces of fluid, 
vols. 1836-37. "Amenorrhcea: " showing the 
efficacy of sinapisms applied to the mammae in 
a case of obstinate amenorrhcea, vols. 1836-37. 
"Pathology and Treatment of Bilious Fever," 
presents original views of the pathology of so- 
called bilious fevers, and contains one of the 
earliest recommendations of quinine as a cura- 
tive. It is a standing record of the condition 
of knowledge at that time, vols. 1837-38. "Pa- 
thology of Convulsions: " papers elicited by M. 
Trousseau's advocacy of compression of the ca- 



rotid artery in the treatment of convulsions. 
The fallacy of the practice is demonstrated, and 
convulsions attributed to irritation instead of 
congestion, vols. 1837-38 and 1845. "Liga- 
mentum Dentis: " the discovery of dental liga- 
ments considered and found to be only partially 
correct. By careful dissections found the ex- 
istence of ligamentous bands, constituting a 
capsular ligament for each tooth by which alvio- 
lar cavity is completely closed. Formation of 
alviolar membrane also explained, vols. 1838-39. 
"Anatomy and Physiology of the Liver," urges 
the belief that one of its important functions is 
the regulation of the introduction of foreign 
materials into the blood through the portal vein, 
and another its action as a diverticulum of the 
stomach, etc., under certain circumstances, vol. 
1839. "Surgical Operations During Mesmeric 
Insensibility: " among the first performed in the 
United States, vols. 1845-46. "On Quinine in 
Intermittent and Remittent Fevers:" showing 
the great efficacy of quinine without regard to 
the condition of the head, stomach, etc., in 
opposition to general practice. Probably first 
paper advocating these views and advising qui- 
nine in pneumonia as it prevails in the South, 
vol. 1847. "Clinical Lecture on Syphilis: " the 
author exposes his views, which differ from those 
generally received, vol. 1849; "Treatment of 
Fractures Without Roller Bandage," its bad 
effects pointed out and abandonment urged, 
vol. 1850; " Dislocations of the Elbow-Joint," 
making diagnosis more complete than is done 
by text-books, vol. 1851; "Amputations and 
Anaesthetic Intoxication by Spirits of Turpen- 
tine," vol. 1851; "Fractures of the Clavicle," 
with objections to axillary pad, treated with a 
string bandage, vol- 1852; "Wounds of Intes- 
tines Treated with Animal Sutures," vol. 1S52; 
" Snoring Prevented by Excision of the Uvula," 
vol. 1852; "Sudden Rupture of an Ovarian 
Tumor," — peritonitis — recovery, vol. 1852; 
" Foreign Bodies in the Air-Passages," vol. 1853 ; 
"On Femoral Exostosis," with acase, vol. 1S53 ; 
" Objections to Utero-Abdominal Supporters," 
vol. 1S54; "On the Best Plan of Treating 
Fractures in Country Practice:" the simplest 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



569 



plan indicated for eacli fracture, vol. 1854; 
" Epidemic Dysentery," its relation to malaria, 
quinine and saline treatment most successful, 
vol. 1854; "Objections to Pessaries in Prolap- 
sus Uteri," vol. 1854; "On the Use of Beverages 
in Sickness," vol. 1854; "Surgical Operation 
Under Local Anaesthesia," vol. 1S55; "Extra- 
ordinary Case of Prolapsus of the Rectum," vol. 
1S55 ; "A New Means of Diagnosis in Disloca- 
tions of the Shoulder," vols. 1S56 and TS5S; 
"Fractures of the Scapula, Attended with Pa- 
ralysis," with special reference to those of the 
neck of the scapula, attended with paralysis of 
the arm, vol. 1S56; "Lecture on Some of the 
Effects of Intemperance," showing its influence 
on the propagation of the species, and account- 
ing for the extinction of the American aborig- 
ines, vols. 1857 and 1859; "Treatment of Frac- 
tures of the Femur with Weight," vol. 1859; 
"Aneurism of the Ischiatic Artery," ligature of 
this and subsequently of the primitive iliac, with 
general history, vol. 1859; "Lecture on Te- 
tanus," vol. 1S61; "On the Supposed Influence 
of the Mother in the Production of ' Ncevi 
Materni,'" and other deformities, vol. 1S66; 
"Compound Fracture of the Os Femoris," 
healed in six days, vols. 1866-67. 

In addition to his voluminous contributions 
to the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, 
the following papers from his pen have appeared 
in other medical publications : " Cases of Urin- 
ary Calculus," treated by lithotomy and litho- 
trity, Transactions Medical Society of Georgia, 
1874; "Mania a Potu," treated by cold ablu- 
tions, Atlanta Medical and Surgical Journal, 
November, 1875; "Remarks on the Curability 
of Inflammation:" efficacy of Tincture of Iodine, 
ibid.; " Mammites and Mammary Abscesses," 
treated by bandaging, Transactions Medical 
Association of Georgia, April, 1875; "On Some 
of the Pathological Peculiarities of the Negro 
Race," ibid., 1876; "On Penetrating Wounds 
" of the Abdomen," with the suggestion of a 
change of practice in such cases, Transactions 
International" Medical Congress, 1876; "A Sim- 
ple Process by which Motes and other Objects 
may be Removed from the Eye," New Orleans 
24 



Medical Journal, 1S77; "Means by which the 
Reduction of Strangulated Hernia by Taxis is 
Materially Facilitated," ibid., 1877. 

Dr. Dugas has all his life been devoted to his 
profession, giving especial attention to surgery. 
Having been twenty years Dean of the Faculty 
of the Medical Department of the University of 
Georgia, he has necessarily been brought much 
in contact with the junior members of his pro- 
fession, by whom he is regarded with the warmest 
feelings of affection and respect. His vast knowl- 
edge and great originality of ideas, acquired by 
steady and persistent study and reflection, have 
modified in a remarkable degree the opinions 
and practice of his professional brethren on 
many points in the general practice of medicine. 
As a surgeon eminently conservative, he is never- 
theless by no means wanting in bold originality, 
as is evidenced by one of his last suggestions for 
operations in cases of penetrating wounds of the 
abdomen, in which he advocates the heroic 
treatment of opening the abdomen for the pur- 
pose of ascertaining the true nature of the 
wounds, and closing by ligatures any opening 
made in the intestines. A conservative in poli- 
tics, he has never taken any active part in party 
organizations, but has contributed extensively 
to the press on the great questions of the day, 
notably on the important issues of know-nothing- 
ism and secession, to both of which he was 
strongly and conscientiously opposed. His un- 
bending integrity and sound, sober judgment 
have secured him the respect and deference of 
his fellow-citizens, and though somewhat reserved 
in manner, in the society of his many warm 
friends he is kindness and geniality itself. Ever 
ready to comfort and assist the deserving, none 
know but the recipients the extent of his private 
beneficence. 

Dr. Dugas has been twice married — the first 
time, in 1833, to Mary C. Barnes, daughter of 
Captain John B. Barnes, planter, of Columbia 
county, Ga. ; she died the same year, leaving a 
daughter who afterwards married Dr. William I. 
Holt, of Montgomery, Ala., who served with 
great distinction in the Russian service during 
the Crimean war, receiving numerous crosses 



37° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



and honors for his gallantry. He was married 
a second time, in 1S40, to Louisa V. Harriss, 
daughter of the Rev. Juriah Harriss, planter, of 
Columbia county, Ga., by whom he has two 
daughters and three sons. His eldest daughter, 
by his second marriage, is married to Mr. James 
D. Cole, of Augusta. One of his sons, Louis 
Alexander Dugas, is a rising young lawyer in 
Augusta, and another, Dr. George Cuvier Dugas, 
who has resided many years in the principal 
cities in Europe, is now practising successfully 
in that city, and is the adjunct Professor to his 
father in the Chair of Surgery in the Medical 
Department of the University of Georgia. 



HON. K. P. BATTLE. 

North Carolina. 

EMP PLUMMER BATTLE was born 
near Louisburg, Franklin county, N. C, 
December 19th, 1S31. He is the son 
of Hon. \V. H. Battle, for many years 
one of the Judges of the Supreme Court 
of North Carolina. His primary education was 
commenced under Mrs. Harriet B. Bobbitt, the 
preceptress of a famous school at Louisburg, and 
on the removal of his father to Raleigh, he be- 
came a student at the Raleigh Academy under 
Messrs. Silas Bigelow and J. M. Lovejoy. In 
1S43 ms father changed his residence to Chapel 
Hill, where he was prepared for college, and in 
June, 1845, entered the University of North 
Carolina, graduating thence with the first dis- 
tinction in all his studies in 1849. Messrs. 
Peter M. Hale and T. J. Robinson were sharers 
in this honor, and the valedictory was delivered 
by Mr. Battle. After graduating, he was for 
one session tutor of Latin and Greek, and was 
then chosen tutor of Mathematics, which position 
he held for four years of the palmiest days of the 
university. He was unusually successful in 
making the course of studies attractive, and in 
gaining the respect and good-will of the stu- 
dents, amongst whom there were a large number 
who have since become eminent in the different 
professions. He resigned his post in June, 1S54, 




and having obtained his license to practise law 
in all the courts of the State, commenced the 
active duties of his profession at Raleigh. He 
soon took a good standing at the bar, and with 
his partner, R. H. Battle, Jr., rapidly acquired 
a flourishing and increasing practice. In the 
organization of the Bank of North Carolina, 
Mr. Battle, young as he was, enjoyed the dis- 
tinction of being among its first directors, being 
associated with such eminent men as George W. 
Mordecai, George E. Badger, J. H. Bryan, B. 
F. Moore, and others. He was also appointed 
a Director of the Insane Asylum of North Caro- 
lina, and served several years on its executive 
committee. In i860 he ran for a seat in the 
General Assembly, and though lie failed in 
securing his election by three votes, he with his 
colleagues succeeded in carrying the county for 
the Whig candidate. This campaign is still 
remembered as one of the most spirited and 
exciting in the history of the county, and a 
document prepared by Mr. Battle, entitled, 
" Ad valorem, Explained by Questions and An- 
swers," was so highly approved of, that 50,000 
copies were ordered by the Whig Executive 
Committee for distribution. He was a pro- 
nounced supporter of the Union, being in the 
spring of i86r President of the Union Club for 
Wake county; but on the issue of President 
Lincoln's proclamation calling for 75,000 men, 
he, in common with all the leading men of his 
party, determined to cast his lot in with the 
South. He was elected a delegate to the Con- 
vention, pledged to secession, and his name is 
appended to that ordinance immediately follow- 
ing that of the distinguished George E. Badger. 
He took a prominent part in the Convention, 
acting with the Conservative party headed by 
Mr. Badger, ex-Governor Graham and others, 
who elected Colonel Vance Governor of the 
State in 1862. Throughout the war he was a 
warm supporter of Governor Vance, who enter- 
tained a high opinion of his judgment, and 
when the conscript officers threatened to disre- 
gard the mandates of the courts of North Caro- 
lina in the habeas corpus proceedings, sent him 
with Governor Bragg on a mission to President 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



37i 



Davis to procure positive orders that the process 
of the courts should be respected, in which they 
were successful. In 1862 he was made President 
of the Chatham Railroad Company, which it 
was intended to build to the Gulf in Chatham 
county in order to obtain access to the coal and 
iron in the Deep River Valley. Owing to the 
scarcity of labor, animals and supplies, the un- 
dertaking was an arduous one, and Mr. Battle 
did all that perseverance and energy could ac- 
complish ; but when the works were on the eve 
of completion, as far as Lockville, from whence 
the river was navigable to the Gulf, Sherman's 
army appeared on the scene, and scattered men 
and materials to the four winds. In 1865, in 
conjunction with Colonel Heck and others, he 
endeavored to induce immigration from the 
Northern States into North Carolina. An office 
was opened in New York, and circulars and 
pamphlets were sown broadcast calling attention 
to the wonderful resources of the State. A large 
number of applications were received, and the 
project was in a fair way to succeed when Thad- 
deus Stevens made a speech in Congress, advo- 
cating the confiscation of Southern lands for the 
benefit of Union soldiers. The policy he urged 
did not meet with a favorable response, and was 
vigorously attacked by the New York Tribune 
and others. The scare caused by his speech 
subsided, and again inquiries from Northern 
people desirous of settling in the South began to 
pour in, but the split between Congress and 
President Johnson, and the establishment of 
military rule in the South, placed such obstacles 
in the way that the enterprise was abandoned. 
Governor Andrews, of Massachusetts, engaged in a 
somewhat similar venture, and.failed for the same 
reason. At the request of Governor Worth, Mr. 
Battle became a candidate before the General 
Assembly of 1865 for the office of Treasurer of 
the State, and was elected by a large majority. 
He was again elected unanimously in the House 
of Commons, with only two dissenting votes in 
the Senate, by the General Assembly of 1S66-7. 
His reports as Treasurer gained him much repu- 
tation for his accurate knowledge of the condi- 
tions and history of the State debt, on which he 



became a recognized authority. Probably no 
man in the State is more widely known among 
those who are interested in the State debt than 
he. When he became Treasurer, the revenue 
laws of the State were in a pitiable state of un- 
certainty and confusion. There were three dif- 
ferent acts in operation — that "of 1861, which 
was re-enacted by the General Assembly of 
1865-6, the amendments thereto made by the 
Assembly, and Tax Ordinance of the Conven- 
tion of 1865 — all of which laws were framed on 
the specific instead of the ad valorem system. 
The constructing and harmonizing of these laws 
gained for Mr. Battle increased reputation as a 
lawyer and a business man. In common with 
Governor Worth and the other executive offi- 
cers, he was deprived of office by the Recon- 
struction acts of Congress. 

In 1S69, in response to the urgent request of 
the agriculturalists of the State, he undertook to 
resuscitate the North Carolina Agricultural So- 
ciety, which had been destroyed by the war, and 
with characteristic energy in a few months he 
had erected new buildings on the Fair grounds, 
and, starting with but little except the naked 
land, a very creditable fair was held in. that 
year, and an impulse was given to the agricultu- 
ral interests which has steadily increased to the 
present time. 

Mr. Battle was elected a Trustee of the Uni- 
versity of North Carolina in 1862, and served 
on its Executive Committee continuously until 
1S68. Before the war the university was very 
prosperous, had good endowment invested in 
bank stock, and accommodated about four hun- 
dred and fifty students. It was one of the few 
Southern institutions of learning which remained 
open during the war. Its endowment was de- 
stroyed by the insolvency of the banks, whose 
means were largely invested in Confederate and 
State war securities, which became worthless. 
In 1867 Mr. Battle, as Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Trustees, made an elaborate report of 
a plan to reorganize the university, which was 
adopted by the board; but it was not carried 
into effect, in consequence of the election of a 
new Board of Trustees, under the reconstruction 



37* 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



laws, who dismissed the original faculty and [eluding a large collection bought in Vienna 

put others in their place. 

failed; students refused to join, and very soon 



This experiment The university is under the control of a Board 



the doors were obliged to be closed. The con- 
stitution of the State was changed in 1873, ar >d 
under its provisions trustees were chosen by the 
General Assembly, as before the war. Mr. Battle 
was elected on the Board, and at its first meeting 
was unanimously chosen Secretary and Treas- 
urer. In 1S75 tne doors were opened, although 
legal difficulties retarded the work for a year. 
With his usual zeal and enthusiasm he overcame 
all difficulties, and the revival of this renowned 
institution of learning was largely attributable to 
his energy and perseverance. In 1876 he was 
chosen, by an unusually large board, President 
of the University, and inaugurated his office by 
making stirring addresses throughout the State 
and to the General Assembly in favor of the 
claims of this venerable institution to the hearty 
support of all. 

The University of North Carolina was estab- 
lished December iSth, 1776, in obedience to a 
clause of the constitution of the State, but in 
consequence of the exigencies of the war of in- 
dependence and the prostration following it, 
some years elapsed before the mandate of the 
constitution was carried into effect. In Novem- 
ber, 1792, the university was located at Chapel 
Hill, Orange county, twenty-eight miles from 
Raleigh, the capital of the State, and the land 
on which the buildings are situated, 840 acres, 
was donated by the citizens of the neighbor- 
hood. In October, 1793, the corner-stone of 
the first building was laid with Masonic honors 
by Governor William Richardson Davis, Grand 
Master. The doors were opened for students 
in February, 1795. The buildings are now 
eight in number, five of them of large size, af- 
fording accommodation for 500 students, and 
have cost probably $ 250,000. A new chemical 
laboratory, excellently fitted up, has recently 
been added, and an Agricultural Experiment and 
Fertilizer Control Station, under the charge of 
Dr. Albert R. Ledoux. There is also a new 
Physics Hall, with new and costly apparatus for 
instruction, and a museum of minerals, etc., in- 



of sixty-four Trustees, elected by the joint vote 
of the General Assembly; of these, one-fourth 
go out of office and their places are filled every 
two years. During the recess of the board, an 
Executive Committee c£ seven trustees, elected 
at the annual meeting, exercise all the powers 
of the board. The faculty consists of twelve 
professors, including the president. One native 
of the State, without the means to defray the 
necessary expenses, is selected annually from 
each county and admitted free of charge, and 
pupils are admitted to the branches of agricul- 
ture and mechanic arts without previous literary 
training for the regular college courses. In 
1875-76 there were 69 students; in 1876-77, 
112; in 1877-7S, 160; and in the year 187S-79 
there will probably be considerably over 200 
students. 

In the winter of 1S76-77 the General As- 
sembly was induced to grant a small sum for the 
establishment of a Summer Normal School, and 
accordingly in the summer of 1S77 a six weeks' 
session was held, at which 235 students attended, 
many of them among the best teachers in the 
State, and the school was conducted by a special 
faculty of expert normal teachers. 

Prior to accepting the Presidency of the uni- 
versity, Mr. Battle was a Director of the Citi- 
zens' National Bank, Director of the Insane 
Asylum of North Carolina, President of the 
Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, Senior Warden 
of Christ Church, Raleigh, Trustee and Secre- 
tary and Treasurer of the University of North 
Carolina, President of a life insurance company, 
Director* of two fire insurance companies, and 
Vice-President of the North Carolina Agricul- 
tural Society, but has since resigned all but the 
directorship in a fire insurance and in a life in- 
surance company, the Vice-Presidency of the 
agricultural society, and the Trustee and Treas- 
urership of the University of North Carolina. 
He is now also a member of the Board of Agri- 
culture, and Senior Warden and Lay-reader of 
the Episcopal Church, Chapel Hill. He is also 
engaged in cotton planting in Edgecombe 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



373 



county, N. C. No worthier son of North Caro- 
lina could have been called upon to preside 
over her university. Well-read, scholarly, of 
high mental qualities and capacity, he is emi- 
nently fitted for his high duties. Fondly cher- 
ishing his Alma Mater, and devoted to her 
interests, he has brought to her aid a zeal 
and enthusiasm which is an assurance of suc- 
cess, and under his management the univer- 
■ sity has been re-established on a sure and firm 
foundation. 

He married a daughter of James S. Battle, 
of Edgecombe county, and has a daughter and 
four sons, of whom two are students of the uni- 
versity; the elder, Kemp P. Battle, is the first 
of the four generations who have joined the in- 
stitution, his great-grandfather, Joel Battle, hav- 
ing matriculated in 1799, his grandfather, Judge 
William H. Battle, in 1S1S, and his father, 
Kemp P. Battle, in 1845. 



REV. T. H. PRITCHARD, D. D. 

North Carolina. 

(THE design of this work is to give a true 
representation of men and things in the 
South. We should certainly fail of at- 
taining this end were we to ignore the 
religious opinions and condition of the 
people, and therefore we have deemed it emi- 
nently proper that, in connection with the 
sketches of distinguished clergymen which we 
give, should be presented a brief statement of 
the history and present condition of the churches 
they represent. Dr. Pritchard is a leading min- 
ister of the largest religious denomination in 
North Carolina, and before proceeding to speak 
of him personally, we propose to say a word 
about the denomination with which he is 
identified. 

The first Baptist minister of whom we read in 
America was Hansard Knollys, who preached in 
Dover, N. H., from 1635 to 1639, when he re- 
turned to England. Before leaving this coun- 




try, however, he evinced his own liberal culture 
and appreciation of sound learning by founding 
the " Hansard Knollys' Professorship," of Har- 
vard University, the oldest of the colleges of 
America. 

The Baptists of America did not spring from 
Roger Williams. He was a Baptist, it is true, 
and he organized a church, but this church, ac- 
cording to the best authorities, soon became 
extinct, and this large and influential denomi- 
nation of Christians was first planted in different 
sections of the country bv independent colonies 
who came directly from the old world. 

It is very certain that the first Baptist church 
in North Carolina was organized by the Rev. 
Paul Palmer, who came from Maryland, but was 
himself descended from a colony of Welsh Bap- 
tists. This church was constituted in Camden 
county, in 1727, and still prospers under its ori- 
ginal name — Shiloh Baptist Church. 

In 1 742 a colony of Baptists, under the lead- 
ership of Rev. William Sojourner, came from 
Berkeley county, Va. , and settled on Kehjjkee 
creek, in Halifax county, N. C. A little later 
another colony, also from Berkeley county, Va., 
under the direction of Rev. Shubal Stearns, 
came to North Carolina and settled on Sandy 
creek, then in Guilford, now Randolph, county. 
This was by far the most prosperous of the 
Baptist settlements in the State, and in 1758 the 
churches which sprang from this mother church 
organized the Sandy Creek Association, the 
third Baptist association of the country; the 
Philadelphia Association having been formed 
in 1707, and the Charleston in 1751. The 
Baptist State Convention of North Carolina was 
organized in 1830, in Greenville, Pitt county. 
A year or two later the denominational college, 
Wake Forest, was founded, and about the 
same time Rev. Thomas Meredith, then pastor 
at Edenton, began to publish a religious journal 
called The Baptist Interpreter, which paper, 
under the name of The Biblical Recorder, is the 
recognized organ of this church in the State 
now. The progress of the Baptists may be seen 
from the following statistics: 



itt.fi. 



374 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In 1770 there were nine Baptist churches in 
North Carolina ; in 1 784, 42 churches, 47 min- 
isters and 3,776 communicants; in 1812, 204 
churches, 117 ministers, 12,567 members; in 
1832, 332 churches, 211 ministers, and 18,918 
members; in 185 1, 599 churches, 374 ministers, 
and 41,674 members; in i860, 692 churches, 
374 ministers, and 59,778 members; in 1S77, 
1,442 churches, 793 ministers, and 135,000 mem- 
bers. These statistics, for the last few years 
taken from the "Baptist Year Book," compre- 
hend all the Baptists of the State, white and 
colored ; of the latter class there are probably 
40,000. There are two Baptist conventions in 
the State — one is called the Western Conven- 
tion, located beyond the Blue Ridge, and has, 
perhaps, a constituency of twenty-five thousand 
members — the other, known as the Baptist State 
Convention, is much the larger and more in- 
fluential body. 

Thomas Henderson Pritchard was born in 
Charlotte, N. C, February 8th, 1832. His 
father, Joseph Price Pritchard, was a native of 
Charleston, S. C, and also a Baptist minister. 
His mother, Eliza Hunter Henderson, belonged 
to one of the oldest and most distinguished 
families of the State. Her father was Dr. Sam- 
uel Henderson, who was an intimate friend of 
General William R. Davie, Colonel Thomas 
Polk, and the elder Wade Hampton, of South 
Carolina, and was a first-cousin of the Hon. 
Archibald Henderson, of Salisbury, who was 
pronounced by Judge Murphy the finest lawyer 
of his day in the State, and Leonard Henderson, 
who was for a long time Chief-Justice of North 
Carolina. 

The subject of this sketch was the valedicto- 
rian of his class in 1854, when he graduated at 
Wake Forest College, and began the work of 
the ministry the same year, while acting as 
agent to raise a suitable endowment for his Alma 
Mater. He was ordained as pastor of the Bap- 
tist Church, of Hertford, N. C, in November, 
1855, Rev. William Hooper, D. D., LL. 1), 
preaching the sermon of the occasion. He went 
to Charlottesville, Va.j in 1S5S, to read theology 



with Dr. John A. Broadus, and while there 
attended the lectures of Dr. McGuffey in Moral 
and Intellectual Science, in the famous Univer- 
sity of Virginia. He was pulpit-supply for the 
Baptist Church of Fredericksburg, Va., during 
the temporary absence of the pastor, Rev. Wil- 
liam F. Broadus, D. D., in 1S50, and settled 
as pastor of the Franklin Square Barjtist Church, 
Baltimore, Md., in January, i860. During the 
war he was arrested as a rebel, and, after a brief 
imprisonment of six weeks, was sent South by 
the Federal authorities. After preaching in the 
army of Northern Virginia, during the great re- 
vival of the' autumn of 1S63, he took charge of 
the First Baptist Church, of Raleigh, N. C, in 
November, 1S63, during the absence of Dr. 
Thomas E. Skinner, the pastor, who had gone 
to Europe. When the war closed Dr. Skinner 
returned to his church, and Mr. Pritchard was 
called to the pulpit of the First Baptist Church, 
of Petersburg, Va. He remained there for two 
years and a half, and did a good work in re- 
building the handsome house of worship of that 
church, which had been burned by lightning the 
Sabbath before he became pastor. 

In February, 1868, Dr. Pritchard was recalled 
to the church he had served in Raleigh, and has 
thus been its pastor for about twelve years. In 
June, 1868, the degree of Doctor in Divinity 
was conferred upon him by the University of 
North Carolina, when he was but thirty-six years 
old, the same honor being awarded, on the same 
occasion, to Rev. Charles Phillips, of the Pres- 
byterian, and Rev. A. A. Watson, of the Episco- 
pal churches. The manner in which Mr. Pritch- 
ard received his doctorate was not a little sin- 
gular. 

During the war the late Governor Charles 
Manly had a favorite servant to die. The good 
old woman was a Baptist, and though the Gov- 
ernor and his family were Episcopalians, the 
Baptist pastor was sent for to bury her. Stand- 
ing on the steps of the rear piazza of the man- 
sion, with the family seated near, and the yard 
full of colored people, Mr. Pritchard pronounced 
the discourse which made him a Doctor of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



375 



Divinity. Four or five years afterwards when, 
doubtless, he had forgotten all about the inci- 
dent, and when Governor Manly, through age 
and blindness, could not attend the session of 
the Board of Trustees, of which he had been the 
secretary for thirty years, he sent for the Hon. 
D. M. Barringer and the Hon. Kemp P. Battle, 
and told them that he desired them to present 
the name of his young friend Pritchard as worthy 
to receive the title of D. D., and he based his 
opinion upon the sermon preached at the 
funeral of an old colored woman. • 

Dr. Pritchard is probably the best known 
minister of his denomination in North Carolina, 
and has been abundantly honored with positions 
of distinction and responsibility by his own peo- 
ple. He was for many years Chairman of the 
Boards of State and Foreign Missions ; he is the 
President of the Board of Trustees of the Raleigh 
Baptist Female Seminary, a Trustee of Wake 
Forest College, and also a Trustee of the South- 
ern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 
Ky. When, in 1872, it was deemed necessary 
to change the location of the Theological Semi- 
nary from Greenville, S. C, Dr. Pritchard was 
chosen from North Carolina as one of a com- 
mittee, consisting of Dr. J. L. Burrows, then 
of Virginia; Dr. J. P. Boyce, of South Carolina; 
ex Governor Brown, of Georgia; J. S. Smith, 
of South Carolina ; Dr. Samuel Henderson, of 
Alabama; Rev. M. Hillsman, of Tennessee, and 
Dr. S. L. Helm, of Kentucky, to visit the 
various cities of the South and locate the semi- 
nary. This was a most important and responsi- 
ble service, and the selection of Dr. Pritchard 
as one of this committee shows the appreciation 
in which he is held outside of his native State, 
as well as at home. In North Carolina his in- 
fluence is extensive and wholesome, and he is 
always ready in every good word and work, and 
perhaps no man in the State, of any denomina- 
tion, has been a more earnest and effective advo- 
cate of the cause of temperance than he. An 
ardent and affectionate friend, a fair and hon- 
orable opponent, a decided Baptist, yet kind and 
courteous to all who differ from him, he is prob- 



ably the most popular man in Raleigh, and is 
certainly the most successful pastor in the State. 
He is no self-seeker, but a hearty, liberal, chari- 
table and honest Christian minister. It is 
doubtful if any minister in the State has more 
friends and fewer enemies. He is genial, almost 
jovial, in disposition, and his face beams with 
good humor. In person he is rather short and 
quite stout. His voice is uncommonly strong, 
clear, deep, rich and musical ; his articulation 
is excellent ; his gestures easy, frequent and 
graceful, and his elocution, taken all together, 
exceptionally good. There are closer students 
and more original thinkers than he, but few are 
able to use their powers and acquisitions to bet- 
ter advantage. While for many years his vision 
has been weak, he has read a good deal and to 
considerable purpose, for he is one of the most 
remarkable absorbers to be found in the limits 
of his denomination. He writes well, and has 
published a small work on the baptismal contro- 
versy, that his people regard with great favor. 
He is a fluent and fine talker, and can both tell 
and enjoy a joke with much zest. He is a thor- 
oughly refined and well-bred gentleman, gifted 
in all the proprieties of polite society, with no 
foolish mannerisms or %yeak affectations in the 
pulpit or out of it. In debate he is courteous 
and fair, and is always listened to with pleasure 
when he takes the floor, the platform, or the 
pulpit to address an audience. Exceedingly 
fond of quail-shooting he has the reputation of 
being one of the best wing-shots in North Caro- 
lina. It is not surprising that such a man should 
receive calls from other States, but a strong love 
for his native State has hitherto kept him in 
Raleigh, and it is probable that he will live and 
die there. 

He married, November 18th, 1858, Fanny G. 
Brinson, daughter of William Brinson, of New- 
bern, N. C. Mrs. Pritchard inherits peculiar 
claims to be the helpmate of a Baptist minister, 
her great-grandfather, James Brinson, a strict 
Baptist, having been imprisoned in Newbern for 
refusing to have his children baptized into the 
orthodox church. 



37^ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




PROFESSOR S. LOGAN. 

Louisiana. 

! AMUEL LOGAN was born April 16th, 
1 83 1. His parents' home was in Charles- 
ton, S. C, where his ancestors resided 
for many generations, but he was born 
during a visit to his maternal grand- 
father's country residence, in Colleton District, 
S. C, a short distance from Charleston. He is 
descended, on his father's side, from ancestors 
who belonged to the Scottish gentry. The 
Barons Logan of Restalrig, as far back as the 
thirteenth century, owned large estates in the 
neighborhood of Edinburgh, including all the 
lands on the Frith, known as "South Leith," 
what is now the town of that name, and a por- 
tion of the city of Edinburgh. The name appears 
in Scotch history "at the early period of Wil- 
liam the Lion (twelfth century), and throughout 
subsequent ages it is connected with important 
national transactions" (see Tytler's History of 
Scotland, index "Logan of Restalrig "). For 
example, "in a. d. 1400, Sir Robert Logan of 
Restalrig, Lord Admiral of Scotland, defeated 
an English fleet in the Frith of Forth, and on the 
return of James I. from .his captivity in England, 
he knighted him a Laird of Restalrig, and made 
him High-Sheriff of Edinburgh." The family 
incurred the displeasure — or their large estates 
excited the cupidity — of the corrupt and cruel 
James VI. 

Fictitious charges were trumped up by his 
hirelings, pretending to identify the then Laird 
Logan, of Restalrig, with the alleged conspiracy 
of the noblemen, Gowrie and Ruthven, who had 
been put to death in 1599. Robertson says : 
"Death itself did not exempt Logan from per- 
secution ; his bones were dug up and tried for 
high treason, and by a sentence equally odious 
and illegal his lands were forfeited, and his poster- 
ity declared infamous." Buchanan calls the pro- 
ceeding "an outrage upon the laws of humanity 
and the law of the land." The family then left 
the country, and first resided at a place called 
Luigan, in Ireland, but their descendants after- 
wards moved elsewhere. James Logan, great- 



grandson of one of the Barons, came out to 
Philadelphia with William Penn, of whom he 
was an intimate friend. Logan Square and the 
Loganian Library of that city derive their names 
from this branch of the family, of which there 
are still numerous descendants in the State of 
Pennsylvania. The first American settler of the 
South Carolina family was Colonel George 
Logan, of the British army. He settled in 
South Carolina in 1690, just ten years after the 
first settlement made at "Oyster Point," the 
presort city of Charleston. The first settlement 
of Charleston was in 1670 at "Old Town," on 
the west bank of the Ashley river, but the site 
proved sickly, and was abandoned in 1680 for 
the present site, then called "Oyster Point." 
Colonel George Logan soon took a prominent 
part in the young city, for he was in command 
of a troop of horse when Charleston was attacked 
by the Spaniards and French, in 1706. ("Ram- 
say's History of South Carolina," and "Rivers' 
Sketches.") In 17 16 he was Speaker of the Pro- 
vincial House, and he bore a prominent part in 
the contest with the Lords Proprietors till they 
were deposed from power. (Bancroft, Vol. III., 
p. 17, etc.) His son, also named George, 
married one of the three daughters of the Gov- 
ernor, Robert Daniell, July 30th, 17 19, and 
the existing family of Charleston Logans are the 
direct descendants of that union. They have 
always occupied a high social position in the 
State, and sent out many descendants through- 
out many portions of the South. George Logan, 
the great-grandfather of the subject of this 
sketch, was a surgeon during the Revolutionary 
war; his son, George Logan again, was a phy- 
sician also, practising with distinction for over 
fifty years in Charleston ; he occupied several 
positions of honor in his profession, and was the 
author of a work on the " Diseases of Children," 
based on an experience of over forty years ser- 
vice as physician of the city Orphan House. 
His son, George William Logan, the father of 
Professor Samuel Logan, was a lawyer and 
judge, and died a few years ago at a ripe old 
age, universally beloved and respected. 

Professor Logan's mother was a daughter of 




^u 9 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



377 



Dr. Joseph Glover, a highly distinguished phy- 
sician of Charleston, and member of an old 
South Carolina family. Her name was Ann 
D'Oyley Glover, the middle name being derived 
from her father's mother, who was the daughter 
of Colonel Daniel D'Oyley of Charleston, S. C, 
of Huguenot descent. 

Samuel Logan received his preliminary edu- 
cation in Charleston and then entered the 
University of the State, at Columbia, S. C, 
but did not finish his curriculum at that institu- 
tion. His father, with a family of thirteen 
children, experienced such pecuniary losses that 
young Logan determined no longer to be a 
burden on him. At nineteen years of age he 
began to struggle for himself, and left the uni- 
versity a year before his class graduated. This 
was a great disappointment, especially as he 
stood among the first of a very large class, and 
was recognized as one of the aspirants for its 
first honors. Always with an eye to the study 
of medicine he taught school during the sum- 
mer, and attended the next session of the 
Medical Department of the University of Lou- 
isiana, in New Orleans, the same institution in 
which he is now one of the professors. In this 
city he had even then many relatives. He 
graduated in medicine in 1853 at the South 
Carolina Medical College, in Charleston, S. C, 
standing at the head of his class. He com- 
menced the practice of his profession in the 
parish of St. Andrews, adjacent to Charleston, 
soon secured a remunerative practice, and in 
three years was enabled to remove to the city. 
He had been there less than a year when he 
received the appointment of Assistant Demon- 
strator of Anatomy in his professional Alma 
Mater. Dr. F. P. Miles, the Demonstrator, was 
elected to the chair of Anatomy a year after- 
wards, and Dr. Logan was then appointed in 
his place. He filled this position as well as 
that of Lecturer on Surgery in the Summer 
Medical School, and Adjunct Professor of 
Surgery in the college, till the outbreak of the 
civil war. During the preparations for the 
reduction of Fort Sumter he volunteered his 
services to the Surgeon-General of the State 



for duty on the famous floating battery, and 
served in that capacity during the bombard- 
ment. He entered the Confederate service as 
surgeon at the inception of the struggle, and was 
assigned to duty at a hospital in Richmond, to 
which many of the Federal wounded were sent 
from the first battle of Manassas. It was in this 
hospital that his army reputation began. In all 
probability he was the first surgeon — certainly in 
the Southern army — who resected the shoulder- 
joint for gunshot wound received in battle. 
The subject was one of the Federal wounded at 
the first Manassas, and a patient at the hospital 
above mentioned. The case terminated success- 
fully, the patient having been heard from within 
a few years. This operation, together with 
many others of less note, in all probability 
induced the Confederate Surgeon-General to 
give Surgeon Logan a rather unique assignment 
in a few weeks. Early in the war, physicians 
were abundant but surgeons few. To meet a 
supposed demand for surgical experience and 
skill, Dr. Logan, as soon as the wounded from 
the battle of Manassas had been nearly disposed 
of, received orders to report to General Lee, then 
opposing Rosecrans in Western Virginia, for 
duty as "Operating Surgeon in the field with 
his command." The position was one not 
exactly mentioned in the army regulations, and 
occasioned some remarks in army circles ; but, 
with the exercise of a little tact, no serious 
difficulty was encountered in carrying out the 
object of the Surgeon-General. Most of the 
physicians attached to the command as surgeons 
and assistant surgeons seemed soon to recog- 
nize the propriety of the arrangement, especially 
as the instructions of the Medical Director left 
it discretionary with the surgeons to send such 
wounded only as they deemed advisable to the 
field hospital established by Surgeon Logan, for 
the purpose of assisting them in the care of their 
most serious cases. Towards the close of the 
hard campaign in this part of the Confederacy, 
Surgeon Logan was prostrated by a nearly fatal 
attack of typhoid fever which threw him out of 
active service for about three months. When he 
again reported for duty, General Lee had been 



37S 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



assigned to duty in command of the troops 
engaged in defending the coast of South Caro- 
lina, Georgia and Florida. Surgeon Logan was 
assigned as Medical Inspector to this command. 
He inspected and reported on the hygienic con- 
dition of each camp, and organized many hos- 
pitals along the line. This was a laborious and 
invidious position, for the troops were raw, and 
the subordinate officers had as yet learned but 
little regarding the prime importance of army 
hygiene. Much good was effected, however, by 
the unflinching performance of duty in reporting 
the general neglect of camp cleanliness to head- 
quarters, and it was not long before matters im- 
proved in this respect. Surgeon Logan was 
kept on duty in this department till the active 
campaign around Petersburg caused a still 
greater concentration of forces under Lee's per- 
sonal supervision. In the spring of 1864 he 
was ordered to report for duty in the main 
army; and was occupied in the organization of 
a receiving hospital near Petersburg, in charge 
of which he remained till the threatened attack 
on Wilmington, N. C, caused a concentration 
of troops in that neighborhood, when he 
received orders to report as Medical Director to 
Major-General Whiting, then in command in 
that department. Again he was actively em- 
ployed in organizing and inspecting hospitals for 
some months. He remained in this service on 
the staff of Major-General Whiting, and after- 



wards 



of General Bragg, till the abandon- 



ment of Wilmington and the absorption of the 
forces by those of General J. E. Johnston. Sur- 
geon Logan was then ordered to report to 
General Johnston for duty as Medical Inspector 
for the troops and hospitals in North Carolina. 
Expecting a very active campaign the duty of 
organizing new hospitals again devolved upon 
him, and under most inauspicious circum- 
stances. Sherman had destroyed communica- 
tions to the south. Lee's army had filled all the 
hospitals to the north ; a large force had suddenly 
been concentrated under General Johnston in 
North Carolina, whose hospitals were already 
full, and whose hospital material and supplies 
were well nigh exhausted in caring fur not only 



the Confederate sick, but the vast horde of Fed- 
eral prisoners at Salisbury and elsewhere. 

To meet the expected emergency was indeed 
a hard problem ; but school-houses, churches, 
warehouses, hotels, etc., were inspected from one 
end of the State to the other. Every point at 
all accessible was visited, and many buildings 
seized and prepared as well as was practicable. 
Facilities, at least for the ordinary accommoda- 
tions of the sick of the army, were promptly 
provided ; and these were being steadily perfected 
and extended to meet the emergency of the ac- 
tive campaign which seemed imminent, when 
the rapid collapse of the Confederate cause put 
an end to further labor in this line. Surgeon 
Logan surrendered with General Johnston's 
staff at Greensboro, and he then directed his 
line of march towards Columbia, S. C, to 
which point his father and six sisters had refu- 
geed when Charleston was being bombarded. 
For many months private anxieties had added 
their weight to the public cares which pressed so 
hard upon him. The residence occupied by his 
father and sisters in Columbia had been destroyed 
with all its contents in the fearful conflagration 
which celebrated Sherman's arrival in that city. 
All the family stores — clothing, family relics, 
the Doctor's books, instruments, manuscripts, 
including almost all his surgical war notes (sent 
there for safety f) — were destroyed. The family 
for three days found a refuge in the corridors of 
the insane asylum, before they could be pro- 
vided for by their less unfortunate friends. At 
last they succeeded in finding a resting-place in 
the house of a friend who had retreated as Sher- 
man advanced ; and here Dr. Logan found them 
when, jaded and worn out, both horse and man, 
he reached the city. Something had to be done 
— a new road had to be struck out ; and we next 
find the Doctor in the capacity of a stage-driver. 
Immediately after the close of the war, the refu- 
gees from the low country began to flock back 
to their old haunts by the seashore. The rail- 
roads had been destroyed, and there arose a 
great demand for other means of transportation 
across the smouldering path of some forty miles 
which Sherman (i.\ Tiny NINETEENTH CENTURY!) 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



379 



had strewn with ashes. With the army horses 
of his brother, General T. M. Logan, then de- 
tained in Virginia, and his own, Dr. Logan 
started a stage line, consisting of an open spring 
wagon filled with wooden chairs and drawn by 
two horses, which he and his father drove back 
and forth across the gap in which there was no 
railroad capable of being used. In this way 
mainly, bread and meat were procured for the 
family till the ensuing winter, when all were 
moved back to Charleston. At the session of 
the South Carolina Medical College of the years 
1865 and 1866, he performed his former duties 
as Demonstrator of Anatomy and Adjunct to the 
Chair of Surgery, but in the following summer 
he was elected to the Chair of Anatomy in the 
Medical College of Virginia, in Richmond, Va. 
He removed, therefore, to that city in the fall 
of 1866, and delivered one course of lectures on 
Anatomy, after which he accepted the Chair of 
Surgery tendered him by the New Orleans 
School of Medicine in the summer of 1867. He 
removed to New Orleans early in August of that 
year, and in 1869 was elected Dean of the New 
Orleans School of Medicine. In 1872 he was 
elected Professor of Anatomy and Clinical Sur- 
gery in the Medical Department of the Univer- 
sity of Louisiana, which position he still holds, 
besides being actively employed in a large prac- 
tice with a special reputation as a surgeon. 
Professor Logan has made his mark as a teacher, 
in which role he is particularly noted. His bed- 
side instruction and his clinical lectures and 
operations rank him among the first teachers in 
practical surgery. He has always evinced great 
interest in the improvement of the system of 
medical teaching in the United States — a sub- 
ject yearly attracting more and more of the at- 
tention of the prominent members of the profes- 
sion. In order to aid in this desirable object, 
Professor Logan was the first to suggest a plan 
which seems at last to be assuming a practical 
shape, as may be seen by the following extract 
from the proceedings of the meeting of a Medi- 
cal College Convention held at Washington, 
D. C, April 30th, 1870: 

" The Secretary read the resolutions offered 



by Professor Logan previous to the last adjourn- 
ment; i. c, Whereas, This Convention has 
failed to secure the assent of a majority of the 
regular Medical Colleges of the United States, 
to the system of improvement in medical educa- 
tion recommended at its last session ; a?id 
whereas, it is the opinion of this Convention 
that the best means by which a judicious system 
of gradual improvement in medical education 
can be inaugurated by the Medical Colleges of 
this country will be found in the associated ac- 
tion of such colleges as will unite for that pur- 
pose; it is hereby Resolved, First, that a commit- 
tee of nine be appointed, whose duty it shall be 
to communicate with the Faculties of all the 
regular Medical Colleges in the United States 
with the view to ascertain how many and which 
may be willing to become members of an Asso- 
ciation of Medical Colleges, having for its prime 
object the improvement of Medical Education. 
Second. That the chairman of said committee 
be instructed, as soon as he shall have received 
affirmative replies from ten regular colleges, to 
inform each Faculty so consenting of the fact, 
and to request that each Faculty elect one or 
more delegates to convene on the Friday before 
the day appointed for the meeting of the Ameri- 
can Medical Association in 187 1, and at the 
place of meeting chosen by that body — said 
delegates to be fully authorized to pledge their 
respective faculties to the acceptance of whatever 
definite plan of improvement in medical education 
may be adopted by the body in convention. 
Third. That it is hereby recommended that said 
delegates organize themselves, in behalf of their 
respective institutions, into a permanent Associa- 
tion of Medical Colleges for the above-men- 
tioned object, and with the view of co-operating 
with the American Medical Association and the 
profession at large in efforts to accomplish so 
desirable an end. Fourth. That Professor N. 
S. Davis, the Chairman of the Committee ap- 
pointed by the Convention of 1867 to commu- 
nicate with the Medical Colleges on the same 
subject, be made the chairman of this committee, 
and that the committee be authorized to fill any 
vacancy which may occur in its ranks. On the 



3 So 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



motion of Professor Bemiss, they were unani- 
mously adopted. The Vice-President in the 
chair filled the committee called for in the first 
resolution as follows: Professor N. S. Davis, of 
Chicago, Chairman ; Professor Samuel Logan, 
of New Orleans ; Professor A. Hammer, of St. 
Louis; Professor T. Pan-in, of Louisville; Pro- 
fessor S. D. Gross, of Philadelphia ; Professor 
A. C. Post, of New York ; Professor George C. 
Shattuck, of Boston ; Professor George C. Black- 
man, of Cincinnati ; Professor A. P. Talley, of 
Columbia, S. C." 

The Association of Medical Colleges, as sug- 
gested, is now in successful operation. Profes- 
sor Logan first appeared in the medical literary- 
world as one of the editors of Gedding's Surgery. 
This work was gotten up from the notes of the 
lectures delivered by the distinguished Professor 
Eli Geddings, of Charleston, S. C, in the South 
Carolina Medical College. It was published in 
1S58, and was intended to meet the wants of the 
large classes then attending that institution. It 
met with a warm appreciation. In order to 
complete the work certain subjects which had 
been necessarily omitted by the lecturer were 
treated by the editors in separate essays, which 
were incorporated in the body of the book. Dr. 
Logan's essays were highly complimented by the 
medical journals, one of these essays (that on 
Syphilis) being pronounced by a standard au- 
thority (American Journal of Medical Sciences) 
the most thorough discussion on that subject 
which had at that time appeared in America. 
Dr. Logan has been a frequent contributor to 
the current medical literature. A few of his 
publications of special importance may be men- 
tioned. 

The subject of the prophylactic treatment 
of the malarial fevers occupied the atten- 
tion of the Medical Department of the Confed- 
erate government early in the war, many of the 
troops having been necessarily much exposed t<> 
miasmatic influences. In order to test the ef- 
fects of quinine with scientific accuracy, as a 
prophylactic, Surgeon Logan, while on duty on 
the South Carolina coast, instituted careful ob- 
servations on the troops stationed along that 



sickly region. These observations continued 
throughout the whole summer, and were cm- 
bodied in an article which appeared first in 
a medical journal published during the war in 
Richmond, Va., but which was soon widely 
copied into other journals in Europe as well as 
America. The observations were made on a 
large scale, and showed in tabular form the rela- 
tive numbers attacked by malarial fevers of those 
who took quinine as a prophylactic and those 
who did not — the parties being in all other par- 
ticulars identically situated. These observations 
demonstrated the decided, though not absolute, 
prophylactic power of quinine in the malarial 
forms of fever. The ethnological differences 
between the skulls of the Caucasian and African 
have been long ago carefully investigated ; but 
comparatively speaking, not much has been 
done in the comparison of the rest of the 
skeleton. 

While Demonstrator of Anatomy in Charles- 
ton, during the years immediately preceding and 
following the war, Dr. Logan investigated this 
subject, and in the number of the Richmond 
Medical Journal for June, 1867, the results of 
his admeasurements and his study of this subject 
will be found embodied in an article presenting 
facts previously unknown. The bearing of these 
facts on medico-legal science was also pointed 
out. 

An elaborate article, entitled " Cancer not 
Primarily Constitutional," was published by 
him in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical 
Journal for October, 1867. The views therein 
advocated have since gained ground markedly, 
and are now held by many distinguished pa- 
thologists, though at the time this article ap- 
peared the opposite opinion almost universally 
obtained. In the same journal (July, 1873) 
Dr. Logan gave, in reporting a remarkable case 
of removal of a cancer, a rather novel view in 
regard to the "Prognosis of Cancer." In the 
same journal, at a later date, appeared an article 
containing an original view of the pathological 
processes involved in the progress and evacua- 
tion of abscesses, and a law was proclaimed 
which set a^ide the former explanations. No 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



38i 



contradiction of this new law has yet ap- 
peared. 

In the Richmond and Louisville Medical Jour- 
nal (1869) he published the description of anew 
method of reducing dislocation of the femur — 
though he had already published the same plan 
in a clinical lecture, an abstract of which was 
given in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical 
Journal for July, 1868. In the Transactions of 
the American Medical Association for the year 
1S70, will be found an article, which had been 
read by Dr. Logan before the surgical section of 
that body, on a "New Method of Reducing 
Dislocations of the Humerus." In the number 
of the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal 
for August, 1S72, appears an article on "Exci- 
sion of the Left Scapula Subsequently to Resec- 
tion of the Head of the Humerus of Previous 
Date." A very useful limb resulted, as was 
demonstrated to the medical class in attendance 
at the University of Louisiana years after. This 
is believed to be probably the only case of the 
kind recorded in American medical literature, 
and possibly in European also. The case has 
been frequently referred to in the surgical writ- 
ings of the day. Omitting many other publica- 
tions, we find an exhaustive article on " Injuries 
of the Head," commencing in the number of 
the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal 
for October, 1877, and continued in subsequent 
numbers. It contains many original ideas, but 
one of special note. A great deal has been 
written in works on gunshot wounds, on the 
differences presented between the orifices of 
entrance and exit in such injuries. As a rule 
the orifice of entrance is smaller and less lacer- 
ated than that of exit. Many explanations have 
been attempted, but that presented by Dr. Logan 
in this article seems irrefutable. He contends 
that it is simply a question of comparative sup- 
port, the surface receiving the most support — 
usually, but not always, where the ball enters — 
being the least torn. We quote as follows: 

" I have held and taught these views in regard 
to this oft-mooted question, since i860, at which 
time I demonstrated their truth on the dead sub- 
ject. I fired balls through the limbs with the 



latter braced against a piece of soft wood, and 
invariably the orifice of exit was the smaller, for 
the support of the wood to the surface of exit 
was greater than the support of the tissues to the 
surface of entrance, notwithstanding the loss of 
momentum, and according to Teevan's theory, 
the possible accumulation of material, like a 
rolling snow-ball, by the missile. I claim for 
my simple theory that it not only explains the 
phenomena of gun-shot orifices in skull wounds, 
but also the not infrequent and otherwise puz- 
zling exceptions where, in other portions of the 
body, we find the orifice of exit smaller than 
that of entrance. Some chance support is prob- 
ably present in all such instances. I saw sev- 
eral cases during the war in which the patient, 
having been on horseback, the ball traversed 
the thigh where it rested firmly against the sad- 
dle, this fact explaining the comparatively small 
orifice of exit. The importance of this discus- 
sion becomes apparent when we consider its 
medico-legal bearings. We can only testify 
that, as a rule, the orifice of entrance is smaller 
and less torn than that of exit ; and it seems to 
me that the exceptions to the rule might be fully 
and satisfactorily explained on the principle I 
advocate even to an ordinary jury ' ' (see New 
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, Novem- 
ber, 1877, p. 369). 

As a specimen of Professor Logan's literary 
ability, we make the following extracts from his 
salutatory at the commencement exercises of the 
Medical Department of the University of Louisi- 
ana, March, 1879 : 

" Man and his relations ! Here may be found 
a field for the gratification of every variety of 
intellectual taste, and no danger of satiety, for 
new wonders and new incentives for further and 
still further study arise at every step in any direc- 
tion in which your special taste may lead you. 
Man has been well said by some of the older 
sages to be a microcosm of the universe. In his 
nature we find represented, not only the material 
constituents of that universe, but the forces 
which operate therein. He is thus a microcosm 
of the universe, but he is something more. He 
has that within him which is above and beyond 



3 32 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



all the rest of God's creation — that incompre- 
hensible, mysterious, self-conscious, reasoning 
soul, which, while it constitutes the sceptre of 
his power over the rest of creation, at the same 
time binds him in a conscious dependence on 
the Great Creator, whom we have been thus 
truly taught to call, with becoming reverence, 
'Our Father.' Can there be found in all 
nature so grand a theme for our contemplation, 
and speaks not the poet well, when he says that 
' The noblest study of mankind is man ? ' No 
study so elevates the mind towards the Great 
Source of all Truth, or should more tend to bow 
the soul in humble reverence before the foot- 
stool of Him ' from whom and of whom are all 
things, and without whom there is nothing.' 
All seekers after truth are, by the very act of 
doing so, brought so much the nearer to God, 
who is truth. The astronomer with painstaking 
zeal collects and collates the phenomena pre- 
sented by the heavenly bodies, calculating their 
speed, measuring their size, tracking them in 
their far-coursing orbits, arranging them in their 
natural systems ; and as reducing his knowledge 
to law, he rises higher and still higher in his 
grand generalizations, he finds himself drawing 
nearer and yet nearer to Him who ' holds the 
earth as in the hollow of his hand, and guides 
the planets in their orbits.' The geologist pene- 
trates the earth's crust, layer after layer, and as 
he peruses the tabulated records of former ages, 
there indelibly preserved, he feels that there also 
is to be seen, far back, ages and ages beyond all 
recorded time, the same forming hand which 
now, as then, gives life and law to all things. 
The chemist penetrates the veil still deeper, and 
while he watches with curious eye the molecular 
actions which underlie all changes, he, too, feels 
the Invisible Presence. The student of organ- 
ized nature finds still higher and more intricate 
design in every plant or animal whose structure 
and whose growth he examines. As he studies 
the anatomy and the physiology of plant or ani- 
mal, he finds himself absorbed in the contem- 
plation of the wonderful powers exhibited by 
what we call life. Led, indeed, by these sciences, 
we penetrate into the secret hiding-place of that 



mysterious agency; and do I hazard too much 
in saying that these sciences have found this 
hiding-place, this long sought sanctum sancto- 
rum, to be simply a little microscopic cell ? 
May we not affirm that herein resides at least 
this mystic power we call life, even if we are 
still constrained to acknowledge our absolute 
inability to define what it is? A cell — a little 
microscopic cell — the parent, the fans ct origo 
of all structure, what is it ? A simple cell-mem- 
brane containing a fluid, semi-fluid, or granular 
material, and generally a nucleus and a nucleo- 
lus. And this is pretty nearly all we can see in 
that wonderful little body, that mysterious little 
workshop, wherein Nature elaborates her grand- 
est and her most curious designs. Lo ! a won- 
der and a constantly repeated miracle ! In this 
simple little body resides the skill, and from it 
issues the power which uplifts the trunk of the 
giant oak to heaven, and plants its grasping 
roots deep and far into the earth ; which clothes 
the fields in green, and covers the hill-sides with 
the summer flowers ; which peoples the ocean 
with teeming life, there builds its coral conti- 
nents, and decorates their jagged cliffs with a 
drapery of tangled sea-weeds ; which fills with 
life the wet morass, the arid plain, the lofty 
mountain slopes; which peoples the earth with 
successive generations of human beings, and 
supplies all the wonderful energies with which 
that phase of life abounds ; which, in short, 
working through the whole vegetable world, 
clothes all nature with a magical beaut)', which 
no fairy-land of the imagination can excel ; and, 
moving through the whole animal creation, fills 
the world with active, happy life, and evokes 
from each living being the marvellous phenomena 
of sensibility, motion, instinct, passion, nay, 
even perhaps thought itself! Thus, by a won- 
derful process quietly going on throughout the 
vast domain of organized nature, by the con- 
stant workings of the mystic God-given power 
which is ever busy in each little organic cell — 
each effecting its special purpose — we see evoked 
from these simple elements a variety of phe- 
nomena as astounding in character as exhaustless 
in extent; we perceive the beautiful results of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



383 



an energy as powerful as it is mysterious and 
past finding out. 

" We reach now, and we feel that we are in 
the actual presence of those 'things unseen,' 
which are in truth more real than the ' things 
seen.' They are more real for they are the 
more potent, moulding, as they do, the passive 
and mere material world to suit their special 
purposes. Does not this contemplation bring 
us near, indeed, to the Great Unseen Himself? 
The microscopist, viewing through the object- 
glass of his instrument one of these little cells, 
has gone as far into nature's mysteries as human 
intellect will probably ever penetrate. He 
stands at the confines of the unknown and the 
unknowable — at the very entrance to that ' holy 
of holfes,' before which it becomes us to recog- 
nize our finite powers, and rest content to bow 
in humble acknowledgment of our comparative 
ignorance, and in. adoration of that Almighty 
Being whose presence we must feel encompass- 
ing us on all sides, meeting us where'er we 
turn. The student of man is lifted into yet a 
still higher sphere, is brought to a still nearer 
communion with his Maker. It becomes his 
special privilege to see in his own mental nature, 
superadded to the mere animal life, a reflection, 
a flickering ray it may be, of Him who ' knows 
all things and from whom nothing is hid.' 

"When, from observing the peculiar shape, 
size, structure, changes, etc., of any part of the 
human body as taught by anatomy, we infer its 
functions as taught by physiology ; and when 
we again take into consideration the relations 
of that special part, and its function to other 
functions of other parts; and yet again when we 
observe how many variousand apparently diverse 
parts or organs, with their respective functions, 
all concurrently tend to the production of some 
one common result, and we see that that result 
is of evident importance, more or less, to the 
existence and the well-being of the individual 
or the species — when we thus see that each and 
all are related parts of a great plan, we wake to 
the consciousness that, while learning step by 
step to descry the numerous evidences of intel- 
ligent and beneficent design specially imprinted 



upon this portion of God's creation, this chef 
a'aiuvre of creative power, we are really learn- 
ing to read, letter by letter and syllable by syl- 
lable, it may be — mere school-children of Dame 
Nature as we are — yet, truly and understand- 
ing^, to read the very thoughts of the Almighty 
Himself. It is a trite but true expression that 
the true philosopher, while studying at the feet 
of Nature, learns from her inspired lips 

" ' To look from Nature up to Nature's God.' 

Nothing can be more false than the old scandal 
which accuses our profession of a tendency to 
atheism. It was only in the days when religion 
was identified with blind superstition, and when 
the mere dissent of the student of Nature from 
the dogmatic dicta of sectarianism was branded 
as atheism, that the old adage, ' ubitres medici 
duo athei,' could receive any credence. He 
who, with all the light of modern anatomy and 
physiology to guide him, studies the human 
body and uses his common sense, observing, as 
he must, so plainly written there the most indis- 
putable and overwhelming proof, as I have al- 
ready remarked, of all-wise and all-benevolent 
design; he who does this, and then with un- 
abashed and brazen front presumes to say ' there 
is no God,' must be either a fool or a lunatic, 
as some one has expressed it ; otherwise, he 
speaks not what he must feel to be the truth. 
True philosophy and true religion can never in 
the end be at variance, for all truth is but one ; 
and is not Tertullian .correct when he says that 
' Philosophy and Medicine are twin sisters? ' " 

Professor Logan was President of the New 
Orleans Academy of Medicine in 1872, and 
President of the New Orleans Medical and Sur- 
gical Association in 1S76. He is a member of 
the South Carolina Medical Society ; of the 
Academy of Medicine, Richmond, Va. ; of the 
New Orleans Parish Medical Association ; of 
the Louisiana State Medical Association ; and 
of the American Medical Association. He was 
married, September, 1871, to Mary Virginia, 
only child of Hon. George R. King, formerly 
Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of 
Louisiana, and has four children. 



384 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




DR. JEROME COCHRAN. 

Alabama. 

HE Cochran family is one of very ancient 
date, and is widely disseminated on 
both sides of the ocean. In the old 
country they are very numerous in Scot- 
land, and in the north of Ireland, where 
for centuries many of them have occupied high 
positions. 

According to the traditions of the family in 
this country, two brothers came over to the new 
world many years before the Revolutionary war 
and settled, one in Virginia and one in Penn- 
sylvania. Of the fortunes of the Pennsylvania 
branch of the family nothing need be said here. 
The Virginia family increased rapidly in num- 
bers, and, after spreading over many counties 
of the Old Dominion, overflowed into the States 
of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, 
carrying with them everywhere the feeling of 
clanship inherited from their old world ancestors. 
Dr. Jerome Cochran was born in Moscow, 
Fayette county, Tenn., on the 4th day of De- 
cember, 1831, while that county was still in the 
backwoods, sparsely settled with whites, and 
largely occupied by Indians of the Choctaw and 
Chickasaw tribes. His father was Augustine 
Owen Cochran, and his mother Frances Bailey, 
of whom he was the oldest son and the oldest 
child save one — a sister who died in infancy. 
While Jerome was still a mere child his father 
moved into Marshall county, Miss., where he 
spent the larger portion of his life as a planter 
engaged in- the cultivation of cotton. Here also 
Jerome passed a feeble and sickly childhood, 
after the fashion of country boys in new coun- 
tries, seeing nothing and hearing but little of 
the great world and its multiform ambitions, 
excitements, and dissipations. After his twelfth 
year he was put to work on the farm, side by 
side with his father's negroes, handling the plow 
and the hoe like them, and like them exposed 
to wind and weather. During the summers, 
when the press of farm work was over, he went 
to an old field-school in the neighborhood, where 
he acquired the rudiments of an English educa- 



tion. Subsequently he supplemented this poor 
beginning by an extensive course of reading and 
private study, gleaning everything within his 
reach in the fields of mathematics, logic, politi- 
cal economy, metaphysics, theology, biology, 
general literature, general science, and the 
modern languages. He was aided in this rather 
remarkable course by a very tenacious memory, 
and by natural indifference to the usual amuse- 
ments and distractions of youth. His appetite 
for knowledge was voracious, and his faculty of 
acquisition so phenomenal as to excite the sur- 
prise of all who knew him. History, philoso- 
phy, poetry, fiction, science, nothing came amiss 
to his hungry intellect ; and often after a hard 
day's work in the field he would hang over his 
books until after midnight, and sometimes until 
the breakfast bell rang next morning without 
going to bed at all. 

At nineteen years of age he began life for 
himself as a country school-teacher, a business 
which he continued for about six years, making 
some money, accumulating books, and widening 
continually his field of study. In 1855 he mar- 
ried Sarah Jane, daughter of Jared Collins, a 
well-to-do farmer of De Soto county, Miss. In 
the same year he made the acquaintance of Dr. 
Robert H. Harrison, who was then Professor 
of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the 
Botanico-Medical College of Memphis, a man 
of fine natural abilities, who induced him to 
become a student of medicine in that institu- 
tion. Here he attended two courses of lectures, 
and graduated as Doctor of Medicine in the 
spring of 1877. He went into this school with- 
out any preliminary preparation at all; but with 
his usual energy he soon placed himself at the 
head of the class, and was elected to deliver the 
valedictory address. The curriculum was very 
similar to that pursued in regular medical col- 
leges, except in the departments of practice of 
medicine and materia medica, so that the time 
spent here was by no means lost. He learned 
enough long before his graduation to satisfy 
himself that the peculiar doctrines of the botanic 
system were untenable. His graduating thesis 
was a formal argument against the doctrines of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3S5 



fever and inflammation which were taught in the 
school, and, his valedictory address was an ener- 
getic protest against medical sectarianism. 

The next two years were spent in the practice 
of medicine in north Mississippi, when, his 
ambiguous position in the profession becoming 
irksome to him, he went in the fall of 1869 to 
Nashville, Tenn., where he entered the medical 
department of the university, and became the 
favorite private student of Professor W. K. 
Bowling, who was the incumbent of the chair 
of Theory and Practice. Here his Memphis 
diploma counted for nothing, and he was 
obliged to commence again as a first course 
student. He, however, through Professor Bow- 
ling's influence, obtained immediately the posi- 
tion of Resident Student in the Hospital of the 
State of Tennessee, and at the close of the ses- 
sion, in the spring of i860, he was placed in 
charge of the hospital, as Resident Physician. 
After two winter courses of lectures and one 
summer course, he received the regular degree, 
in February, 1861. Here again he was elected 
valedictorian by the graduating class, which 
numbered 154 members, the largest graduating 
class ever known in the South. 

It was in the spring of 1861 that the great 
civil war broke out between the States. Dr. 
Cochran, after spending a few months at his 
old home in Marshall county, and after a brief 
sojourn with the Mississippi troops at Corinth, 
went into the Confederate hospital at Okalona, 
Miss., as a Contract Physician. This hospital 
was the principal asylum of the sick and 
wounded of the Confederate army after the 
battle of Shiloh; it contained 3,000 beds, and 
was the largest Confederate hospital outside of 
Richmond. Whilst employed in this hospital 
the doctor applied for appointment as Surgeon 
in the Confederate army, for which position he 
was recommended by the Board of Medical Ex- 
aminers stationed at Mobile, Ala. In response 
to this application the Surgeon-General, Dr. S. 
P. Moore, sent him a commission as Assistant 
Surgeon, which was promptly declined, and as 
promptly followed by an appointment to the 
full rank of Surgeon. This was early in 1862. 
25 



Dr. Cochran continued on duty at Okalona 
until after the battle of Corinth, in 1863, when 
this post had to be abandoned. The remnants 
of the big hospital were transferred, in part, to 
Meridian, Miss., and in part to Marion Station, 
a railroad village five miles north of that city. 
Dr. Cochran was retained at the latter place for 
several months. During this time, and indeed 
near the close of it, he was badly crippled from 
a severe contusion of both ankles, occasioned 
by jumping from a railroad train that had run 
from the track. This accident compelled him 
to the protracted use of crutches. Nevertheless, 
he remained on duty, and was in charge of the 
stores at Marion Station when General Sherman, 
after the fall of Vicksburg, advanced upon Meri- 
dian. All the other surgeons had gotten out of 
the way; but he remained at his post, in spite 
of his crippled condition, loaded all the empty 
cars he could get hold of, and at the last mo- 
ment attached his cars to the last engine that 
went down the road to Mobile, thus saving to 
the Confederacy a hundred thousand dollars' 
worth of hospital property. He passed through 
Meridian with his stores at nine o'clock on 
Saturday night, and Sherman entered the town 
at sunrise on Sunday morning. 

These stores were ultimately turned over to 
the medical purveyor at Montgomery, and Dr. 
Cochran was ordered to open a hospital at Tus- 
caloosa. He accordingly proceeded to that 
place, and rented the old Indian Queen Hotel 
as the best available building for the purpose ; 
but, just as it was ready for occupation, he was 
ordered to turn it over to Dr. Anderson, and to 
proceed to Gainesville, in the capacity of Sur- 
geon of the post there. The order had to be 
obeyed; but, feeling himself aggrieved by this 
action, he addressed to the acting Medical Di- 
rector of the department, Dr. Preston B. Scott, 
of Louisville, an exceedingly severe letter, which 
led to his being detailed for the examination of 
conscripts in north Alabama. By virtue of his 
rank he was President of the Board. He made 
his head-quarters at Tuscaloosa, but his field of 
duty extended over the counties of Tuscaloosa, 
Fayette, Jefferson, Marion, Blount and Walker. 



3 86 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



At the time of the surrender he was at Tusca- 
loosa, with his family, and while waiting for the 
confusion to subside, which was incident upon 
the changed order of things, he turned his at- 
tention to the study of mental diseases, in the 
State Insane Hospital, at that place, then and 
now under the charge of Dr. Peter Bryce. 

Towards the end of June, 1865, he came to 
Mobile, a perfect stranger and without money, 
for the purpose of practising his profession. 
His efforts in this direction were crowned with 
very gratifying success for a period of five years. 
But in February, 1870, he visited Nashville to 
deliver an address before the Alumni Associa- 
tion of his medical college. The trip was made 
during an intensely cold spell of weather, and 
he contracted a very painful disease, which dis- 
abled him from active work for several years, 
and from which he has never entirely recovered. 
At first it attacked the muscular system and the 
joints, and was regarded as rheumatism. Sub- 
sequently it invaded the alimentary canal, and 
assumed more of a neuralgic character. He was 
much improved by "roughing it" for three 
months in northeastern Texas and the Indian 
Territory in the summer of 1875, an d nas re- 
mained, not well, but better ever since. 

In 186S he was elected Professor of Chemistry 
in the Medical College of Alabama. Fault was 
found with him in 1870 by some members of the 
faculty, because he taught, in private lectures at 
his office, a different doctrine of cerebro-spinal 
fever from that taught by the professor of clin- 
ical medicine at the college, whereupon he 
promptly tendered his resignation, which, how- 
ever, he was finally induced to withdraw. It 
may be added, that a year later the clinical pro- 
fessor had the magnanimity to state, in the 
Mobile Medical Society, that in this contro- 
versy, as to the nature of cerebro-spinal fever, 
he had been entirely wrong, and Dr. Cochran 
right. He again tendered his resignation of 
the chair of Chemistry in 1873, this time per- 
emptorily, on account of a disagreement with 
the faculty, growing out of an attempt made by 
them to take the City Hospital from the control 
of the Sisters of Charity, who held it under a 



lease from the city. He opposed this move- 
ment because he believed it to be unjust, im- 
politic, and certain of failure; and fail it did 
disastrously. Before the commencement of the 
next session of the college, the faculty created 
for him the chair of Public Hygiene and Medi- 
cal Jurisprudence, which he filled until 1877, 
when he resigned it under the following circum- 
stances: In the bill to Regulate the Practice of 
Medicine in Alabana, which was then pending 
in the General Assembly, the faculty of the col- 
lege was made one of the recognized boards of 
medical examiners, and the bill in this shape 
received the faculty's support. After some de- 
bate the General Assembly resolved to strike out 
this clause, and to leave the Medical College of 
Alabama on the same footing with medical col- 
leges in other States, whereupon the faculty, by 
a majority of one, determined to oppose the 
passage of the bill. Dr. Cochran preferring the 
interest of the profession to the interest of the 
college, and not willing that any fancied alle- 
giance to the faculty should embarrass his efforts 
with the General Assembly, immediately re- 
signed his professorship. 

Since 1870 Dr. Cechran has directed his 
efforts and studies almost wholly in the direc- 
tion of public hygiene, and towards the better- 
ing of the legislation of Alabama in respect of 
the laws regulating sanitary matters and the 
practice of medicine. So thoroughly did he 
comprehend the problems that he proposed to 
himself, and so completely did he solve them, 
that almost all that appears in the statutes of the 
State to-day in relation to public health and 
medical practice is his handiwork. That is to 
say, his plans have found acceptance with the 
medical profession and with the Legislature, and 
have been incorporated into the constitution 
and ordinances of the State Medical Association 
and enacted into State laws. (See "Revised 
Code of Alabama," 1876, sections 1516 to 1543 
inclusive, and Transactions of the State Medical 
Association, passimJ) 

If the Code itself is not witness enough of his 
successful work, we have the more eloquent tes- 
timony of the medical profession, speaking 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



387 



through the mouth of Dr. B. H. Riggs, the 
orator of the medical association, at Eufaula, in 
April, 1878. (Transactions, 31st session, page 
172.) Said the orator: 

''As Bichat and Hunter were the geniuses of 
the origin of the new era which I have attempted 
to briefly portray to you to-night, and Sims and 
Sayres are its choicest fruit and greatest modern 
exemplars, so there sits within the sound of my 
voice one whom I may appropriately style the 
genius of medical organization. Our medical 
association, with its complex machinery already 
in operation, and an adumbration of more, owes 
its present excellence and pre-eminence largely 
to the zeal, fidelity and energy of one mind. 
Patient, far-reaching, tenacious, learned, inde- 
fatigable, oftentimes misunderstood, and some- 
times misrepresented, Dr. Jerome Cochran 
builded wiser than he knew in creating the plan 
of the State association. He deserves to rank 
as the apostle of organized medical action in the 
new era. As the British Medical Association 
has come to the United States for a code of 
ethics, so have older States in the American 
Union, and others are still to come, sought in- 
spiration in studying our plan of organization." 

Dr. Cochran's three great works are (1) "The 
Medical Association of Alabama," (2) "The 
Public Health System of Alabama," (3) "The 
System Regulating the Practice of Medicine in 
Alabama. ' ' These are severally entitled to sep- 
arate treatment. 

Dr. Cochran's connection with the Medical 
Association of Alabama commenced in 1S68, 
when a meeting was called at Selma for reor- 
ganization, after eight years of suspension, in 
consequence of the war. At this meeting he 
was elected Secretary, a position which he filled 
at six annual sessions, and to which he was 
chosen six different times, and which he re- 
signed in 1873 t0 take another and more im- 
portant place. This association, like most other 
medical associations in this country, was a 
simple convention of doctors, very loosely bound 
together, with very few duties, and no penalties 
that were ever enforced. In the discharge of his 
functions as Secretary, Dr. Cochran very soon 



discovered the inherent defects and weaknesses 
of this plan of organization, or rather of this 
plan of association, in which organization is 
conspicuous only by its absence, and with char- 
acteristic decision he at once set to work to 
devise a better system. His avowed aim from 
the beginning was to replace the loose conven- 
tion of doctors, whose principal business was 
the discussion of questions of medical science, 
by a compactly organized, thoroughly disci- 
plined and self-perpetuating medical legislature. 
All of this is clearly expressed in the second 
section of his now famous constitution, which is 
accordingly here quoted: 

"The objects of this association shall be to 
organize the medical profession of the State in 
the most efficient manner possible. To encour- 
age a high standard of medical education, and 
to regulate the qualifications of practitioners of 
medicine in the State. To promote professional 
brotherhood and encourage a high standard of 
professional ethics. To combine the influence 
of all the medical men in the State, so as to 
secure by legislative. enactments their own legiti- 
mate rights and privileges, and the protection 
of the people against all medical ignorance and 
dishonesty. To encourage the study of the 
medical botany, medical topography and medi- 
cal climatology of the State. To secure careful 
and reliable accounts of all the endemic and 
epidemic diseases of the State. In a word, to 
watch over and protect, encourage and aggran- 
dize all the interests of the medical profession 
of the State." 

The first general outline of his plan was pre- 
sented to the association at the annual session, 
in Montgomery, in 1870, in the shape of a series 
of resolutions, which were referred to a special 
committee for consideration. The committee 
made an adverse report, on the ground that the 
scheme, however desirable in itself, was utterly 
impracticable. It was presented again, in the 
shape of a formal plan for a new constitution, at 
the Mobile session of 1871. This plan was dis- 
cussed and ordered to be printed, and its further 
consideration deferred until the annual session 
of 1872, which was held in Huntsville. Here 



3 88 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



it was evident that it would have commanded a 
majority of the votes present, but the author 
himself moved that it should be again postponed. 
It came up for final action at the Tuscaloosa 
session of 1S73, where it was discussed elabo- 
rately, section by section, and where it was tri- 
umphantly adopted by a two-thirds vote. 

The objections which were urged against it in 
the association were: (1) That it was too com- 
plex and cumbersome; and (2) that it was aris- 
tocratic and oligarchical, and hence inconsistent- 
with the genius and institutions of the American 
people. To the first of these objections he made 
the following reply in a published address: 

"Against this plan the objection is urged that 
it is too complex, that it lacks that perfection 
of simplicity which is necessary for the easy and 
efficient attainment of the ends in view. It is 
most strange to me that an objection of this sort 
should be urged by gentlemen who have so often 
heard me expose its weakness. It is stranger 
still that such an objection should be urged by 
persons claiming any decent acquaintance with 
the fundamental principles of comparative anat- 
omy and physiology. It is strangest of all that 
argumentation so flimsy should be expected to 
influence the judgment of a body of educated 
physicians. Simplicity is in no case the measure 
of perfection. Exactly the contrary proposition 
is true, namely: that the measure of the com- 
plexity of an organism is also the measure of its 
perfection. And this rule is true, without ex- 
ception, and applies to all organisms of every 
nature whatever. It is true of the animal hier- 
archy. The simplest animals stand lowest in 
the scale ; the most perfect and the most power- 
ful stand highest in the scale. Compare, for 
example, the shapeless mass of jelly which con- 
stitutes the body of auroelia with the elaborate 
and complex apparatus of organs which is found 
in the body of man, fearfully and wonderfully 
made. It is true in social organisms. Compare, 
for example, the rude and simple habits and 
laws of a tribe of African Hottentots, or Digger 
Indians, with the elaborate and infinitely com- 
plicated social and governmental arrangements 
of any civilized European or American nation. 



It is true even of machines made by human 
hands. Compare, for example, an old-fashioned 
scythe with one of McCormick's reapers. I 
cannot now go into an extended development 
of this principle, but these few familiar examples 
must make it plain even to the commonest ap- 
prehension, and it would be an insult to the 
intelligence of the audience I am now addressing 
to suppose that further argument on this point 
could be needed to convince them — if, indeed, 
I ought not to apologize to such an audience for 
mentioning it at all. The case is so clear that 
only the blind could fail to see it." 

To the second objection he replied in sub- 
stance as follows : 

"The doctrines of freedom and equality fur- 
nish favorite themes of ad cafitandum declama- 
tion to American demagogues, who, as a rule, 
care a great deal for office and the emoluments 
of office, and very little for the imprescriptible 
authority and majesty of truth ; but we seek in 
vain for any realization of these doctrines in 
any of the kingdoms of nature, or in any of the 
kingdoms of men. In the words of Pope, 

" ' Order is heaven's first law, and this confest, 
Some are, and must he, greater than the rest,' 

and it certainly does not require any very lofty 
intelligence to understand that the rule of the 
wise few is better than the rule of the ignorant 
many. Hence it is that everywhere, whether 
nominally so or not, yet in fact and reality, the 
reins of power are in the hands of those to whom 
superior wisdom has given superior strength. 
The strong rule the States. The strong rule the 
churches. The strong rule everywhere, and 
everywhere rule by divine right. And every- 
where, in the words of Mr. Ruskin, ' Govern- 
ment and co-operation are in all things the Laws 
of Life; and anarchy and competition the Laws 
of Death.' " 

The special features of this new constitution 
are: (1) A College of Counsellors, restricted in 
number to one hundred, who constitute a sort 
of senates consultum, and who control the whole 
policy of the association; (2) a Board of Cen- 
sors, composed of ten counsellors, whose term 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



3»9 



of service is for five years, so arranged that two 
of them are elected every year, which constitutes 
a sort of cabinet council, and through whose 
hands passes all of the business of the association. 
It also contained, in the original draft, an elabo- 
rate provision of machinery for the administra- 
tion of the law to Regulate the Practice of 
Medicine, and the law establishing Boards of 
Health, although neither of these laws were en- 
acted until several years after its adoption. It 
is important to add, that the constitution is 
supplemented by a voluminous Code of Ordi- 
nances, which are published in what is known 
as "The Book of the Rules." Amongst these a 
few of the more important deserve to be men- 
tioned by their titles, namely: An Ordinance in 
Relation to the Boards of Medical Examiners ; 
an Ordinance in Relation to the Duties and 
Obligations of County Medical Societies ; an 
Ordinance in Relation to the Revision of the 
Rolls; an Ordinance in Relation to the Pub- 
lishing Committee and its Duties; an Ordinance 
Creating a Health Officer for the State. All of 
these ordinances are the offspring of the same 
mind that framed the constitution. 

Dr. Cochran commenced his public labors in 
the field of public hygiene by a series of papers, 
which were printed in the Alobile Register news- 
paper in 1870, on "The Origin and Prevention 
of the Endemic and Epidemic Diseases of Mo- 
bile." These papers attracted a great deal of 
popular attention, and led to the adoption, early 
in 1871, by the city of Mobile, of a health ordi- 
nance, of which Dr. Cochran was the author, 
creating a health officer and placing the sani- 
tary supervision of the city in the hands of a 
Board of Health elected by the Mobile Medical 
Society. This ordinance has been substantially 
adopted during this present year by the Port of 
Mobile, the municipal successor of the defunct 
city of the same name. Under it Dr. Cochran 
was elected Health Officer, and served as such 
for two years, namely: 187 1 and 1872. In the 
following year the Republicans came into power, 
and abolished the Board of Health, and with it 
the office of Health Officer, instead of which 
they created an Advisory Board of Health and 



a City Physician. This machinery failed to 
keep the yellow fever out of the city in 1873, 
and the Advisory Board became defunct. In 
the spring of 1874 small-pox was brought 
into Mobile from New Orleans, and, in conse- 
quence of the negligence of the City Physician, 
became epidemic by the middle of November, 
having spread over the entire city. The Board 
of Trade became alarmed and invited the 
mayor to a conference. The result was that the 
original Board of Health was informally revived, 
with full power to act during the emergency. 
They at once re-elected Dr. Cochran as Health 
Officer, and adopted his plans of action without 
modification. He was furnished with two clerks 
for office work, seven vaccinating physicians, a 
disinfecting corps, and a detail of policemen for 
a general inspection. The city was canvassed 
as rapidly as possible, to ascertain the number 
and location of the cases, vaccination was com- 
pelled, houses inhabited by the sick were, as far 
as possible, isolated, houses vacated by small- 
pox patients were disinfected, and a new pest- 
house was built, to which were removed all cases 
not properly cared for at home. The result was 
a sanitary triumph without any parallel in the 
world's history. The epidemic was pressed back 
step by step, after- it had spread all over the 
city, and during the season of the year most 
favorable for its propagation, and at last was 
utterly exterminated. Epidemics of small-pox 
have often been prevented by timely attention 
to the first few cases, but it is believed that this 
is the only occasion in which an epidemic under 
full headway has been met and conquered. 

In November, 1S77, Dr. Cochran was elected 
County Physician for Mobile county, for the 
term of three years, a position which he still 
holds (1879). In the great epidemic summer of 
1878, when the magnitude of the danger of the 
city from importation of yellow fever made the 
character of the quarantine physician a matter 
of importance to the citizens, he was selected to 
be the physician at the lower quarantine station 
at Fort Morgan, and was invested by the Board 
of Health with very large discretionary powers, 
tie resigned this position on the 30th day of 



39° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



September, to accept a place upon the National 
Yellow Fever Commission, which was tendered 
him by Dr. John M. Woodworth, the Surgeon- 
General of the Marine Hospital service. He at 
once proceeded to New Orleans, where the com- 
mission first assembled for organization, and in 
the discharge of his duties as a member thereof, 
after two weeks spent in hunting up the his- 
tories of the earlier New Orleans cases, he visited 
the New Orleans quarantine station, Port Eads, 
Osyka, McComb, Jackson, Water Valley, Gre- 
nada, Holly Springs, Grand Junction, Chatta- 
nooga, Decatur and Memphis, making at every 
one of the places visited such researches as his 
limited time allowed into the introduction 
and dissemination of yellow fever amongst the 
people, the object being to trace the causes of 
the progress of the pestilence in time and space, 
in such way as to furnish reliable indications for 
protective legislation. From Memphis, leaving 
his work there unfinished, he went under orders 
to attend the session of the American Public 
Health Association, at Richmond, Va., com- 
mencing November 19th, 1878. The several 
members of the commission made to this body 
preliminary reports of their investigations, which 
were severally referred to special committees 
for consideration. Dr. Cochran's committee 
described the work done by him as almost super- 
human. Returning from Richmond, Dr. Coch- 
ran resumed his investigations as a member of 
the commission, and visited Meridian, Okalona, 
Tuscumbia and Florence in that capacity. At 
Florence he received notification of his appoint- 
ment on the Board of Experts, established to 
aid the Congressional committees of the Senate 
and House of Representatives in the investigation 
of the epidemic of 1878. The proceedings of 
those committees, and of the Board of Experts, 
is a portion of the public history of the Forty- 
fifth Congress. By far the greater portion of the 
field work for the collection of the data used by 
the Congressional committees and the Board of 
Experts had already been done by Drs. Bemiss 
and Cochran, and by Colonel T. S. Hardee, 
civil engineer, whilst members of the Yellow 
Fever Commission, so that the principal work 



of the Board of Experts was to give information 
to the committees, and to formulate the conclu- 
sions warranted by the researches already made. 
Dr. Cochran was made Chairman of the Sub- 
Committee of Experts on the Origin, Cause 
and Distinctive Features of Yellow Fever and 
Cholera. His committee was the first to report, 
and the report was adopted by the full board 
substantially as written. The thirty-four propo- 
sitions — all of those in relation to yellow fever, 
of the conclusions of the Board of Experts — are 
especially Dr. Cochran's work, and constitute 
such a summing up of what is known of the 
natural and secular history of yellow fever as is 
nowhere else to be found. 

The Board of Experts was dissolved on the 
3d day of February, 1879. ^)n tne nth of April 
of the same year Dr. Cochran was unanimously 
elected by the Medical Association Health 
Officer of the State for the term of five years. 

This sketch of his public health services in 
other matters has been given as a fitting intro- 
duction to the account which herefollows of his 
labors for the establishment of a wise system of 
public health administration in the State of 
Alabama. 

The American Medical Association, at its 
annual session in 1871, appointed a committee 
composed of one member from every State in 
the Union, to urge upon the Legislatures of the 
several States the creation of State Boards of 
Health. At that time only two States had 
organized State Boards of Health, namely; Mas- 
sachusetts and California; and these two were 
organized on the same plan, namely: the mem- 
bers, seven in each case, were appointed by the 
Governor from time to time, and were selected 
partly from the medical and partly from other 
professions. It was therefore very natural that 
this plan should have been adopted by the com- 
mittee of the American Medical Association. 
Their memorial in this regard was presented to 
the General Assembly of Alabama in the winter 
of 1871-72, by the Alabama member of the 
committee, a distinguished physician of Mont- 
gomery. Dr. Cochran did not approve of this 
plan, and begged the gentleman in question to 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



39i 



withdraw it. He not only refused to do this, 
but pressed its claims with tireless energy, and 
invoked in its behalf the influence of a wide 
circle of medical friends; whereupon Dn Coch- 
ran felt constrained to undertake the ungracious 
task of securing its defeat, which he did. He 
then formulated his own plan, and submitted it 
to the State Association, at the Huntsville ses- 
sion in 1872, where it was confronted by the 
other plan, which was also submitted by its 
friends, and where both plans were discussed 
with much earnestness and ability, and where, 
finally, Dr. Cochran's plan was indorsed by a 
decided majority of the association. It was 
again presented to the association at Selma, in 
1874, in the definite shape of a bill embodying 
the details of the plan. This time it received 
the unanimous indorsement of the association, 
and the Board of Censors were ordered to pre- 
sent it to the General Assembly, which they did 
at its next session, when it was enacted into a 
law of the State, February, 1875. This law 
makes the State Medical Association the State 
Board of Health, and the County Medical. Soci- 
eties in affiliation with it, the County Boards of 
Health. These County Boards are under the 
general supervision and control of the State 
Board. The right to elect or appoint the officers 
and servants employed in the administration of 
the sanitary regulations is in all cases reserved 
to the Boards of Health, while all questions 
relating to salaries, appropriations and expend- 
itures . are reserved to the appropriate legal 
authorities. 

This law was supplemented by another passed 
in February, 1879, which makes an annual ap- 
propriation of $3,000 for health purposes, to be 
expended under the direction of the State Board 
of Health. Whilst this last measure was pend- 
ing in the Legislature, Dr. Cochran was invited 
by the House to address it on the merits of the 
questions involved, which he did, speaking on 
the floor during the regular session. Those con- 
versant with the usages of legislative assemblies 
will appreciate how signal a tribute of respect 
was conveyed in such a proceeding. After the 
address the House became almost as unanimous 



for the bill as before they had seemed to be 
against it. 

In no other State has such powers been in- 
trusted to the medical profession, and the fact 
that it is so in Alabama is due almost entirely 
to the sagacity and professional devotion of the 
subject of this memoir. 

The history of the "act to regulate the prac- 
tice of medicine in Alabama ' ' is almost a par- 
allel to that establishing boards of health. The 
scheme was first outlined in the resolutions, 
already referred to, which were received ad- 
versely at Montgomery in 1870; and was in- 
cluded again in the plan for a new constitution 
for the association which was submitted at 
Mobile in 1871. It at length received the 
approval of the association when the new con- 
stitution was adopted at Tuscaloosa in 1873. 
The profession of the State being thus com- 
mitted to the new policy, the next thing to be 
done was to get it approved by the legislative 
authorities. The draft of a proposed bill was 
therefore prepared for the consideration of the 
Selma session in 1874. This was brought for- 
ward again with some improvements at the 
session in Montgomery in 1875 ; and still again, 
with some additional improvements, at the 
Mobile session of 1876. At this last session the 
proposed law was unanimously accepted, and 
the Board of Censors were instructed to present 
it to the Legislature. It met with general ac- 
ceptance in the Senate, but was actively opposed 
in the House. It finally passed, in a somewhat 
mutilated although still efficient form, on the 
last day of the session, and at once received the 
signature of the Governor. This law is remark- 
able as being the first in American annals which 
restricts the right to practise medicine to the 
members of the medical profession ; and which 
invests that profession with the power to pre- 
scribe the qualifications of its own members. 
The act requires every person proposing to prac- 
tise medicine in the State of Alabama as a pre- 
liminary to pass a satisfactory examination 
before one of the examining boards created and 
governed by the State Association. It refuses 
the right to practise upon a mere diploma of 



39 2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



graduation at some medical school. The very 
key-note of this scheme is the non-recognition 
of the college diploma ; and it was this that 
provoked against it the professional opposition 
which it encountered. The doctors all over 
the State, and all over all the States, held their 
positions by virtue of their diplomas, and the 
proposition to degrade the diploma very natu- 
rally seemed to them of questionable character. 
The following extracts from a speech made by 
Dr. Cochran on this subject at Mobile will indi- 
cate the sort of arguments he was accustomed to 
make use of: 

" Medical colleges in this country have al- 
ways been conducted on the ordinary principles 
of political economy and commercial competi- 
tion, and with a view to the pecuniary advan- 
tage of medical teachers. In a very large 
majority of instances the colleges have been 
built by private enterprise, and, with the excep- 
tion of a very small number connected with 
State institutions, the salaries of the professors 
have been derived from fees paid by students. 
Philadelphia at first had a monopoly of the 
business, and she very naturally charged remu- 
nerative prices. New York, New Orleans, and 
other cities of large population and many inci- 
dental advantages next entered the list ; and as 
the field was large and the gleaners few there 
was no need that thqy should reduce the fees 
and the qualifications. But after a while many 
interior towns, without so many incidental in- 
ducements, and without the prestige of the 
great tide-water cities, became ambitious to 
have medical colleges of their own, and went 
to work to accomplish their wishes according to 
the most approved methods of political economy, 
commercial competition, and the venerable law 
of demand and supply. The process was simple 
enough. It was only necessary to form a com- 
pany of seven or eight doctors, build a big brick 
house, apply to an ignorant Legislature for a 
charter, and, lo ! the thing was done. Full- 
fledged professors grew up in a night like Jonah's 
gourd, diplomas in high-sounding Latin and on 
excellent • sheepskin could be ordered by the 
thousand, and the only thing left to do was to 



get students. But students they must have or 
perish. And so, still in the spirit of our much 
lauded political economy — and, I dare to say also, 
in full harmony with the spirit of modern prog- 
ress and civilization, and the declaration of 
independence, et id omne genus, that sought to 
attract students by appealing to their cupidity 
and their poverty by low fees and lax examina- 
tions. . . . But if the medical profession have 
no right of control over the medical colleges, 
there is one thing, at least, which they can con- 
trol, and that is the terms of admission into 
their own ranks. This is not simply a privilege, 
but a solemn and important duty ; and I under- 
take to say, that when the profession discharges 
this duty as it ought to be done, we will hear no 
more complaint of the short comings of colleges, 
no more complaint of incompetent and ignorant 
doctors." 

Dr. Cochran's religious history has been quite 
as remarkable as anything else in his career. 
Growing up in a country neighborhood, where 
most of the people were members of the Metho- 
dist communion, he naturally accepted without 
question the general principles and tenets of 
evangelical Protestantism; very naturally looked 
upon the Protestant reformation as one of the 
most glorious occurrences in the whole history 
of the human race ; and also very naturally enter- 
tained the opinion that the Church of Rome was 
in very fact the scarlet lady of Babylon, and the 
mother of all possible abominations. From 
these comfortable convictions he was first awak- 
ened about the eighteenth year of his age by 
the preaching of a Universalist minister, who 
showed that it was quite possible to say some- 
thing in favor of a very different set of doctrines. 
Once aroused to independent thinking, and once 
put in the way of independent investigation, he 
determined to explore the whole question of 
religious faith and obligation to its very founda- 
tions. Ti this end he read everything he could 
lav his hands on in any way connected with 
Christian polemics — read the standard works of 
most of the great Protestant writers : read the 
writings of the English Deists ; read the writings 
of the French Atheists j read German rational- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



393 



ism ; and finally drifted into modern scientific 
materialism. The result of all this was that he 
plunged deeper aud deeper into the abyss of 
skepticism, until at last, like Rafael eben Ezra 
in Hypatia, he ceased either to believe or to dis- 
believe anything. This skepticism was not ex- 
clusively religious, but was philosophical also, 
ontological as well as theological. This descensus 
averni, unlike that described by Virgil, was 
slow and difficult, consuming some ten years of 
his life. The re-ascent, however, conformed to 
the Virgillian model — hie labor, hie opus est. 
Finding some glimpses of metaphysical certi- 
tude in St. Thomas of Aquin, he slowly made 
his way back into the regions of Christian faith, 
travelling always along misty metaphysical high- 
ways, until at last, in May, 1865, he was bap- 
tized into the Catholic Church. As might have 
been expected from his positive temperament, 
he is of the ultramontane school of that church ; 
but what is remarkable is that he has been able 
to reconcile in his own mind his religious tenets 
with the acceptance of the most advanced views 
of contemporary science — with the philosophy 
of evolution, or what is commonly called Dar- 
winism — two things between which, to almost 
every one else, there seems to be irreconcilable 
conflict. 

4-nd now a word as to Dr. Cochran's charac- 
teristics. A large head, a thoughtful and some- 
what saddened brow, a firm mouth, a quiet, 
dark-grey eye, and a complexion rendered sal- 
low by ill-health and sedentary habits, give 
ordinarily an air of stoical apathy to his well- 
formed, intellectual, and rather attractive face. 
This mask to strong passions, while it serves to 
conceal deep emotions, has the disadvantage of 
concealing, also, the silent revelations, if not 
the very existence, of those fine feelings of sym- 
pathy, friendship, and genial sociability which, 
on fit occasions, break forth as through a rift in 
a cloud, to the delight of his friends, and to the 
surprise of those accustomed to regard- him as 
little more than an intellectual machine. 

Intellectually he is of the most imposing pro- 
portions ; and there is no exaggeration in saying, 
that he is one of the most learned men of the 



South. Nature has largely endowed him with 
the capacities of a great scholar. A library with 
its books systematically arranged, numbered, 
and catalogued, in shelves, alcoves, and cham- 
bers, does not present a more perfect picture of 
order than does the vast amount of information 
on many subjects which his untiring industry 
has accumulated, and which an almost match- 
less memory has enabled him to retain. A fine 
command of language, a chaste and luminous 
style, aptness for philosophical speculation, 
large powers of analysis, comparison and reflec- 
tion, a self-control which is never disturbed, and 
a self-reliance based upon a consciousness of 
strength, give him absolute command of his re- 
sources, and render him at once an able writer, 
an instructive and interesting talker, and a con- 
summate master of debate. All the lines of his 
character are strongly marked. His pursuit of 
an object is untiring ; and his zeal in whatever 
he undertakes approaches enthusiasm as nearly 
as his impassive temperament permits. He does 
with his might whatsoever his hand findeth to 
do. In debate his concentration upon the mat- 
ter in hand, and his obliviousness of collateral 
results, unfortunately betray him at times into 
seeming disregard of the feelings of those who 
oppose his plans. 

He is firm almost to obstinacy; and unselfish 
to the verge of improvidence itself. He has 
been known to persevere in his convictions in 
regard to an important public professional inter- 
est, and to struggle for their ascendency, not- 
withstanding it involved the alienation of friends 
and the sacrifice of private interests with which 
he could ill afford to part. 

Although not insensible to praise, and fond 
of a display of his talents, he cannot be consid- 
ered vain. His passion for power displays 
itself rather in quiet methods and dispositions 
for the attainment of ends than in demonstra- 
tions of triumph at success. 

The great objects of his public life in Ala- 
bama have been the organization of the medi- 
cal profession, and its investment with legal 
powers and functions honorable to itself and 
useful to the State. In this field his great abili- 



394 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ties have given him an ascendency and influence 
in the public counsels of the medical profession 
of the State which no other man has ever at- 
tained ; and in it his success has been such as 
should be, and doubtless is, gratifying to his 
ambition and his pride. 

His literary record is extensive. He has de- 
livered a considerable number of addresses 
before various societies and scientific bodies, of 
which only a few have been published; and has 
written a considerable number of scientific 
papers, most of which have been published in 
the annual volumes of the Transactions of the 
Medical Association of the State of Alabama, 
and subsequently issued in pamphlet form. Of 
these, such as are most worthy of mention are 
included in the following catalogue : 

Addresses: — " On the Principles of Organiza- 
tion, and the Evolution of Organic Forms" 
(pp. 53), delivered before the Alumni Society 
of the Medical Department of the University of 
Nashville, February, 1S71 ; "On Medical Edu- 
cation, and the Degradation of the Profession 
by the Medical Colleges" (pp. 10), delivered 
before the Medical Association of Alabama, at 
Mobile, April, 1S71 ; "On the Law of Duty 
and its Relations to Success in Life;" 
Memorial Address in honor of the Physi- 
cians who died in the great epidemic, deliv- 
ered before the Alumni Societies of the Uni- 
versity of Nashville and Vanderbilt University, 
February, 1879. 

Scientific Papers : — "The Administration of 
Chloroform by Deglutition" (pp. 25), Nashville, 
1867; "Endemic and Epidemic Diseases of 
Mobile'; their Causes and Prevention" (pp. 
48), Transactions 1871 ; " History of the Yellow 
Fever Epidemic of 1873 " (PP- 63), Transac- 
tions, 1874; "The White Blood Corpuscle, its 
Physiology and Pathology" (pp. 51), Transac- 
tions, 1874; "History of the Small-Pox Epi- 
demic of 1874-75 in the city of Mobile" (pp. 
125 ), Transactions, 1875 > " Yellow-Fever in Re- 
lation to its Cause," Transactions, 1877; 
"Hermaphroditism," Transactions, 1878; 
"What is Puerperal Fever?" Transactions, 
1S7S; "Sanitary Administration, and the 



Theory and Practice of Quarantine," pamphlet 
(pp. 64); State Board of Health, 1879. 

Miscellaneous: — "The Health Ordinance of 
the City of Mobile;" "The Act Establishing 
Boards of Health in the State of Alabama;" 
"The Act to Regulate the Practice of Medicine 
in Alabama;" "The Act to Carry into Effect 
the Health Laws of Alabama;" "The Constitu- 
tion of the Medical Association of the State of 
Alabama;" "The Annual Reports of the Board 
of Censors of the Medical Association of Ala- 
bama," for the years 1874, 1875, I 876, 1877, 
1878 and 1879, ran gi n o from twenty to eighty 
pages each of fine type. In preparation an ex- 
haustive work on "The Zymotic Diseases in 
their Relations to Public Hygiene." 

As a sample of Dr. Cochran's literary style 
and philosophical opinions, we add here an ex- 
tract from a curious discussion of "The Mys- 
tery of Reproduction," abstracted from his 
paper on the "White Blood-Corpuscle," pub- 
lished in 1874: 

" The most fundamental metamorphosis of a 
bioplast is its metamorphosis into formed mate- 
rial — into histogenetic elements. But this meta- 
morphosis is not universal. There are many 
bioplasts which pursue an entirely different 
career — which undergo metamorphosis by the 
division of their bodies and thus become instru- 
mental to the process of genesis, generation, re- 
production — the process by which the multipli- 
cation of bioplasts is accomplished. The whole 
mystery of reproduction, in all the kingdoms 
of organic nature, is found here in the division 
of a bioplast — in the separation of one micro- 
scopic mass 01 living matter into two micro- 
scopic masses of living matter, for this is, in 
very fact, the separation of one living creature 
into two living creatures. The relations exist- 
ing between growth and genesis are of the most 
intimate kind. Indeed, in the ultimate analysis 
they are but two phases of the same vital pro- 
cess. Growth is continuous development. 
Genesis is discontinuous development. We 
have seen that the multiplication of the lower 
amoebae is accomplished by two apparently 
different processes. But a little examination 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



395 



shows that the two processes are really of the 
same essential character, taking place under the 
influence of different circumstances, and differ- 
ing only in non-essential details. Both are pro- 
cesses of segmentation, that is to say, of single 
division. When the amoeba is young, and its 
entire mass is composed of growing bioplasm, 
without any peripheral envelop of formed mate- 
rial, the segmentation involves the outside as 
well as the inside of the mass. Bat when the 
amoeba is older, and has become enveloped in a 
layer of matter which has ceased to live, then 
the segmentation is confined to the living bio- 
plasm within the envelop. Here, in the primi- 
tive type of the reproductive process, there is no 
such relation between successive generations as 
that of parent and offspring. The young amceba 
has neither father nor mother. One living crea- 
ture has not produced another living creature, 
retaining at the same time its own individuality 
unimpaired ; but one individual has passed en- 
tire with all its parts and powers, into several 
segments, each of which is a new individual. 
When we get a little higher up in the organic 
hierarchy, among creatures of larger size and 
more complex construction, the genesis of new 
individuals is still accomplished by segmenta- 
tion ; but in these the segmentation is partial 
instead of general — that is to say, the division 
does not destroy the individual identity of the 
creature which is divided. Here we might, in 
some intelligible sense, speak of parent and off- 
spring. But at first, and through primitive 
types innumerable, the parent is neither father 
nor mother, and the offspring are neither sons 
nor daughters. As yet there is no sex. Re- 
productive segmentation may be either external 
or internal. In the case of external segmenta- 
tion a bud grows out from some part of the ex- 
ternal membrane which envelops the body of 
the parent and in due time is thrown off and 
left to shift for itself. In most of these cases 
the segmentation is necessarily external, because 
most of these creatures have no cavities in their 
bodies, and consequently no internal membranes 
which can give origin to internal segments. 
But as soon as, in the ascending scale of living 



things, we arrive at creatures containing cavities 
in their bodies, it is within these cavities, and 
upon their lining membranes, that the segmenta- 
tion occurs. The change from external segmen- 
tation to internal segmentation is not of so 
radical a nature as at first it appears to be. The 
internal membranes are only infolded portions 
of the external membranes — are, in other words, 
only portions of skin which have dipped down 
into the visceral cavities. These membranes, 
both internal and external, are covered with 
epithelium — with epithelium variously modified 
and differentiated according to circumstances, 
that is to say, according to the action of inci- 
dent forces. And this rule holds good down 
to the smallest glands and follicles which open 
upon the skin, or upon any of the mucous sur- 
faces. The mucous membranes, being thus mere 
involutions of the skin, are, in all essential par- 
ticulars, of the same character with it. But 
inasmuch as they are softer than the skin, more 
permeable to the elements of nutrition, and more 
protected from adverse influences, they present 
more favorable conditions for the outgrowth of 
the reproductive buds or segments. It is for 
this reason that nature, always parsimonious and 
wisely frugal of her resources, selects these in- 
ternal membranes as the instruments and agents 
of reproduction. And this stage of animal 
development being once reached, internal gem- 
mation, internal segmentation, internal repro- 
duction becomes henceforth the invariable rule. 
And this little bud or segment, which is the 
beginning of a new creature, what is it ? and 
whence is it derived ? It is a little mass of 
bioplasm ; and it is developed from one of the 
epithelial elements. In other words, it is a 
bioplast resulting from the metamorphosis of an 
epithelial cell. But what then is an epithelial 
cell ? This also is a bioplast which has under- 
gone a special metamorphosis. And whence 
this marvellous bioplast, which is the common 
germ alike of epithelial cells and of living ani- 
mals ? In the present state of physiology, its 
genealogy cannot be very confidently given. ■ 
But more and more there is a disposition to 
accept the doctrine propounded long ago by 



39 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Dollinger, and more recently by Biesiadecki — 
the doctrine namely that the epithelial cell is 
derived by simple metamorphosis from the wan- 
dering white blood-corpuscle. And if the 
epithelial cell is derived in this way from the 
white blood-corpuscle, why then it is plain that 
the white blood-corpuscle is the immediate an- 
cestor of every living creature ; yea, verily ! that 
man himself, fearfully and wonderfully made, is 
but an infinitely developed migrating leucocyte. 
If it should be objected that Biesiadecki's doc- 
trine of the origin of epithelium is not definitely 
established, this much, at least, remains certain, 
namely : That the epithelial cell and the migra- 
tory leucocyte are of the same essential charac- 
ter — are both microscopic masses of individual- 
ized bioplasm — are, in a word, biological 
homologues. In the meantime, the doctrine 
that every living creature begins in an epithelial 
cell — in a bud springing from an epithelial sur- 
face — is no longer open to question. And why 
should this be considered an incredible theory — 
an absurd and fanciful physiological dream? It 
has the support not only of observed facts, but 
of all the d priori presumptions of biological 
science. The bioplast is the biological unit, 
the fundamental element of organization. It is 
therefore the natural and inevitable starting 
point of every living organ and of every living 
organism. It is in the sub-kingdom Cceleute- 
rata that permanent cavities first appear, and it 
is here, consequently, that internal segmenta- 
tion is first manifested. The permanent cavity 
of cceleuterate animals is known as the gastro- 
vascular cavity. Let us understand clearly what 
is meant by this. In these animals but little 
progress has been made in the differentiation of 
organs and functions. They have no vessels for 
the circulation of the blood ; indeed they have 
no blood to circulate; but they have a many- 
chambered branching cavity which serves at the 
same time for the ingestion and the digestion of 
food, and for the distribution of the nutritive 
fluid. This is the gastro-vascular cavity. It is 
lined, of course, with epithelium. Now, in the 
lower Cceleuterata the entire reproductive appa- 
ratus consists of a few spots on the surface of the 



walls of this cavity. These spots are covered 
with a sort of epithelium, which is known as 
germ-epithelium, the cells of which, by simple 
growth, become developed into eggs. In the 
higher Cceleuterata the process of differentiation 
has taken another step in advance. The ger- 
minal spots sink down into the thickness of the 
walls of the cavity so as to form epithelial folli- 
cles or sacks. Within these follicles the eggs 
are developed as before, by the simple growth 
of the epithelial elements. When mature, they 
are discharged into the gastric cavity, and thence 
find their way into the external world. 

"We have thus traced the process of repro- 
ductive gemmation, or segmentation, or ovula- 
tion, as far as is necessary for the purpose which 
we have in view. It is true that we have only 
reached the borders of the animal kingdom, the 
Cceleuterata being the first creatures in the as- 
cending scale of development which are distinctly 
and unmistakably animals. But the type of 
ovarian development which they present — that 
of the epithelial follicle-gland — is substantially 
repeated through all the higher classes and or- 
ders up to man. There are variations almost 
innumerable, of special form and location, and 
of accessory and supplemental organs and ap- 
pendages ; but the type of the epithelial sack is 
never changed. Away up among the higher 
orders of Vertebrata, the open epithelial sack of 
Cceleuterata Annulosa, and Molluska is replaced 
by a close sack. But as this is still lined with 
epithelium, and is occasionally opened for the 
discharge of eggs or germs, it is really only a 
modification and not a change of the type. In 
the human female the ovaries are developed in 
connection with the corpora Wolfiamv. They 
are the homologues and the analogues of the 
testes of the male, which are also developed in 
connection with the corpora Wolfiarue. In the 
beginning of their development they consist of 
a mass of fibrous stroma, which is well supplied 
with blood-vessels and covered with a layer of 
cylindrical epithelium and germ epithelium. 
As the development goes on, some of these 
epithelial cells are seen to be larger than others, 
and it is these which are to pass by metamor- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



397 



phosis into the future eggs. Very soon the pro- 
cesses of the fibrous stroma shoot up above the 
general level, while the epithelial membrane 
sinks down into the depressions between them. 
The processes continuing to grow, we have pre- 
sently deep, open follicles lined with the germ- 
epithelium such as we have already seen in Cce- 
leuterata. Each of these open sacks sinks con- 
tinually deeper and deeper into the underlying 
stroma, while the uprising processes approximate 
more and more until at length they touch and 
adhere together, and the mouth of the sack is 
closed by their adhesion. This closed sack is 
the follicle of Von Graafe. Within it the de- 
velopment of the ovum and its envelop gradually 
proceeds to completion, all of its various parts 
being derived from epithelial elements. Inas- 
much as we have found the typical ovarium fully 
developed in creatures like the Culeuterata which 
stand at the very beginning of the animal hier- 
archy, we would expect in accordance with the 
principles of transcendental physiology to find 
this organ in the higher animals presenting itself 
at a very early period of foetal development. 
And such is really the case. While the fcetus as 
yet exhibits no signs of human structure, but is 
still of the soft, larval and quasi cceleuterate 
type, the ovaries with the Graafian follicles and 
the ova are all to be found in a state virtually 
complete. The female infant comes into the 
world with her ovaries full of eggs — that is to 
say, full of the germs of future human creatures. 
Nature, usually so parsimonious, makes prodigal 
preparation for the continuance of the race. 
The number of the ova in the ovaries of a single 
human female is immense. It has b°en estima- 
ted at as high a rate as four hundred thousand. 
Of these myriads very few comparatively, per- 
haps not more than from three hundred to five 
hundred, ever escape from the follicles in which 
they were formed ; and of those that do escape, 
very few are ever developed into living human 
beings. 

" I shall not pause to describe the minute 
anatomy of the human ovum. The truly essen- 
tial portion of it is the so-called germinal vesicle. 
This is a particle of living matter — a microscopic 



bioplast, and therefore entirely analogous to the 
white blood-corpuscle. When mature, it con- 
tains a nucleus, and therefore is a bioplast which 
has reached a comparatively high state of devel- 
opment. As we have already seen, the testes 
of the male are both homologous and analogous 
with the ovaries of the female — that is to say, 
their structural relations are the same, and they 
are appropriated to the discharge of correspond- 
ing functions. The spermatozoon is both ho- 
mologous and analogous with the ovum. It is a 
metamorphized cell — the product of the meta- 
morphosis of an epithelial cell, or at any rate of 
a cell which under other, circumstances would 
have assumed epithelial characters. It is called 
a seminal cell, and is nucleated like the ger- 
minal vesicle. The nucleus forms the head of 
the fully developed spermatozoon, while the rest 
of the bioplasm of the cell sprouts out to form 
the tail ; so that the whole substance of the 
seminal cell is to be found in the spermatozoon. 
There has been a change of form, and with this 
the acquisition of new functions. The sperma- 
tozoon is, therefore, very closely related to the 
white blood-corpuscle. I cannot enter here into 
any adequate discussion of the transcendental 
mystery of sex ; but it will not be amiss, per- 
haps, if I make two or three summary sugges- 
tions towards the reduction of the problem to 
its simplest terms. What is it that takes place 
in the act of sexual impregnation ? Simply this : 
Two bioplasts endowed with different faculties, 
although closely allied in their physiological 
history, ate fused into one. Everywhere the 
process of sexual conjugation, when stripped of 
the glamour of mystery and ceremonial which 
Nature for wise purposes loves to invest it, has 
this for its object — this fusion of two microscopic 
cells into one. I said, just now, sexual con- 
jugation ! But the conjugation and fusion of 
cells, as occasional stages of the drama of repro- 
duction, occur very frequently in creatures in 
which no distinction of sex can be recognized. 
Take an example or two. In Desmids and Dia- 
toms, which are unicellular aquatic plants, 
multiplication usually tikes place by simple 
duplex subdivision. But occasionally a different 



39 s 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



plan of reproduction is invoked. Two of these I creatures in which no sexual differentiation has 
single-celled creatures come together so as to 
touch one another, it may be by accident, or it 
may be, as I believe it is, as the result of some 
mysterious and reciprocal organic attraction. 
The walls of the two cells first grow together at 
the point of contact ; and then the partition thus 
formed is broken down, and the contents of the 
two cells become commingled into a single ho- 
mogeneous mass of bioplasm. Around this there 
is soon formed a cellulose envelop, and we have 
a spore which serves as the starting-point of a 
new series of proliferating cells. In Spirogyra, 
a genus of fresh water algoe, we find another 
illustration of cell-conjugation of essentially the 
same character, but differing a little in some of 
the details. These plants consist of slender 
green filaments formed of single rows of cylin- 
drical and elongated cells. Between the cells 
of two adjacent filaments a wonderful attraction 
is sometimes seen to manifest itself.- In their 
eagerness to embrace one another the wall of a 
cell in one filament bulges out to meet a corre- 
sponding protrusion of the wall of a cell in an- 
other filament ; the two protrusions come into 
contact; the intervening walls are absorbed; the 
whole of the bioplasmic contents of the two 
conjugating cells are gathered into one of them; 
and a spore is thus formed which in due time 
germinates into a new plant. Again : we have 
seen how several previously independent non- 
nucleated amcebce may become associated to- 
gether on a plasmodium, which in time may be- 
come encysted, and by segmentation give rise to 
new generations of amcebce. Is this also an ex- 
ample of reproductive conjugation ? Now, here 
among the lowly creatures which have furnished 
these examples of conjugation, there is neither 
male nor female. The conjugating cells are 
exactly alike. And yet we have here substan- 
tially the same physiological results as those that 
follow the sexual conjugation of the higher 
plants and animals. We have the mysterious 
fusion of two cells into one cell — of two bio- 
plasts into one bioplast — to form the germ out 
of which a new creature is to be evolved. In 
other words, we have manifested here among 



been established, that very same process of con- 
jugal reproduction for which the agency of sex 
is ordinarily invoked as the only possible expla- 
nation. It is easy enough to say that this is 
practically the same thing as the assertion of the 
real existence of sex in creatures which exhibit 
no recognizable sexual characters. And I have 
no doubt that this is frequently the case. But 
I believe that in those first and 1 simplest conju- 
gations which occur in the very lowest ranks of 
organic life, there is no intervention of sex at 
all — either of sex actual or of sex potential ; but 
that the conjugating cells are really, as they seem 
to be, of the same nature, or to speak paradoxi- 
cally, of the same sex — that is to say, of no sex 
at all. On this presumption sex, like all the 
other faculties of living things, arises by imper- 
ceptible gradations out of a common basis of 
homogeneous bioplasm, in obedience to the 
general law of organic evolution, through the 
ordinary processes of growth, development and 
differentiation. The diversity which at length 
becomes so great is developed out of a unity 
which is well nigh absolute. Let us see, if we 
can, what it is that really takes place in that 
wonderful conjugation of bioplasts which is in- 
strumental in reproduction. In the first place, 
it is evident that conjugation does not belong to 
the essence of the act of reproduction ; and this 
is for the quite sufficient reason that we have found 
reproduction to take place abundantly without it. 
Clearly then, conjugation is not a primitive fac- 
tor in the process of reproduction. It is only a 
secondary, an accessory, a supplemental factor. 
But what then is its special purpose? In what 
way does it reinforce and supplement the funda- 
mental forces of reproduction ? In order that 
we may find the answers to these questions, we 
must study the special circumstances under 
which its agency is invoked. We have seen 
already that reproduction in its simplest — in its 
most primitive, in its truly essential — forms is 
nothing more than an incident of growth. 
When growth is continuous, we have increase of 
size — part is added to part. But growth is 
sometimes discontinuous; the individuality of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



399 



the growing mass is destroyed, so that it falls 
asunder, part from part, and each part becomes a 
new individual and leads an independent life. 
Now this falling asunder of the growing mass — 
this curious phenomenon of discontinuous devel- 
opment — occurs during the larval condition of the 
creature that divides — that is to say, while the 
processes of growth are specially vigorous and 
active. But when the growing mass has reached 
maturity, and the activities of nutritive life are 
diminished or suspended, then also this sort of 
multiplication is diminished or suspended, and 
the act of reproduction can be accomplished 
only through the supplemental agency of conju- 
gation. This supplemental agency of conjuga- 
tion then restores the reproductive or prolifera- 
tive energy which has been lost through the 
waning of the powers of growth — of development 
— of evolution. It always does this. But as we 
ascend the scale of organic life, it is found to do 
almost infinitely more than this. Its office is 
magnified more and more the higher we get — is 
indeed at length so immensely magnified and so 
variously differentiated that it is not strange that 
its original character should be overlooked. 
It restores to the senescent and languishing 
creature, or to some of its segments, its waning 
power of growth and development. Restores 
it, but how? The answer to this question even 
is not beyond all conjecture. The subsidence 
of the power of growth and development is con- 
current with the establishment of equilibrium 
among the forces that minister to nutrition. 
All motion, of whatever character, depends upon 
some disturbance of equilibrium. In mechanics 
the complete equilibrium of all the mechanical 
forces is equivalent to complete rest. In physi- 
ology the complete equilibrium of all the vital 
forces is equivalent to death. Now, the fusion 
of two bioplasts into one in the act of conjuga- 
tion breaks up in the most thorough manner the 
paralysis of equilibrium which is stealing over 
them both, and in the complex mass which re- 
sults from this union sets all the wheels of life 
into active motion. One of the most curious 
questions connected with sexual generation is 
this : Which is physiologically the real parent 



of the child, the father or the mother? There 
can be no hesitation as to the answer. Beyond 
all question the child is in a very special sense 
the offspring of the mother. Swedenborg tells 
us that the body and animal life of the human 
child are derived from the mother, but that the 
soul is furnished by the father. The doctrine 
of the natural generation of the soul has been 
condemned by the church ; but there is a sense 
in which this conception of the Swedish seer be- 
comes exceedingly suggestive. I cannot dwell 
upon it, however, now. Sometimes very fre- 
quently indeed, even among creatures that are 
truly sexual, the new individual has but one 
parent, and invariably this solitary parent is of 
the female sex. Hence, this sort of reproduc- 
tion has been called Parthagenogenesis. In the 
common plant-louse — the aphis for example — 
when the weather is pleasant and food abundant 
a very rapid process of multiplication goes on 
without any assistance from the male insect. 
During this time indeed the offspring, as well as 
the parents, are all females. For generation 
after generation no males are to be found. But 
when the conditions of existence become strin- 
gent, when food is hard to get, and the weather 
is unpropitious and life really becomes a strug- 
gle, then the male animal makes his appearance 
and the aphide mothers are no longer virgins. 
We have seen how the ovum makes its appear- 
ance in the female foetus of the human race 
while the fcetus itself is still within the womb of 
its mother. The same thing takes place in all 
the higher animals ; perhaps, also, in all the 
lower animals. At any rate it has been observed 
in the organic reproduction of aphides which I 
have just described. The mother's body in- 
closes the daughter's body imperfect and imma- 
ture ; and the daughter's body at the same time 
incloses the still more imperfect and immature 
body of the granddaughter; so that we have 
three generations mysteriously folded up to- 
gether. 

"It is necessary to add here, that while these 
rapidly multiplying aphides are females, they 
are not perfect females. The young broods are 
not developed in a true ovarium, nor from per- 



400 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



feet ova ; but the process seems to be one of 
internal gemmation in the simplest sense of the 
word. We have, however, examples of partha- 
genogenesis amongst Hymenoptera and Lepidop- 
tera, in which perfect females, with all the gen- 
erative organs normally developed, prove prolific 
without any conjugal intercourse with males. 
Dzierzon, a Catholic priest in Prussian Silesia, 
announced, in 1845, tnat tne e S§ s fr° m which 
the male bees or drones originate are produced 
and developed by the sole inherent power of the 
mother bee without the action of the male seed. 
In 1S63, this doctrine of Dzierzon was fully con- 
firmed by the microscopic investigations of Von 
Siebold and Leukhart. The queen bee, as is 
well known, receives the embraces of the male 
only during the hymeneal flight. If her wings 
are crippled, so that this flight cannot be taken, 
she lays eggs which produce only male bees. 
The workers again, with whom no nuptial rights 
are possible, sometimes lay eggs, and these al- 
ways produce drones. It is a curious fact that 
in the agamic reproduction of Aphididce the 
offspring is almost exclusively female ; while in 
the agamic reproduction of Aphidoe the offspring 
consist entirely of males. A still more curious 
illustration of agamic reproduction is presented 
by the Psychidce, a family of butterflies. Here 
the female is in every way perfect, and endowed 
with seed-vessel and with copulating pouch. 
But no copulation is accomplished, and no sper- 
matozoa take part in the process of reproduction. 
The eggs also are perfect and with perfect mi- 
cropyles, but they undergo development without 
any preliminary fertilization. Among these 
creatures indeed reproduction seems to be per- 
manently agamic without even the occasional 
occurrence of gamogenesis. The search for the 
male insect has now been continued for many 
years, but no males have been found. In a 
word, these wonderful Psychidce are all females, 
and all virgins with no fierce masculine mates 
to annoy them with conjugal importunities, and 
no tempests of sexual passion to disturb the 
serenity of their lives. Many other examples 
of agamogencsis, including also many examples 
of true parthenogenesis, might be mentioned 



here. They are so numerous indeed that it 
would hardly be rash to assert that non-sexual 
reproduction is of cruite as common occurrence 
in the animal kingdom as sexual reproduction ; 
and that one-half of the living creatures that are 
born into the world are born without the instru- 
mentality of male ancestors. But the examples 
which I have given are sufficient for my purpose 
— are sufficient, that is to say, to sustain my as- 
sertion, that in the process of reproduction sex 
is not a primitive and fundamental factor, but 
that it is in reality only a secondary and comple- 
mental factor. It is, indeed, in the reproduction 
of the higher animals, an indispensable factor; 
but it is not primitive and fundamental inas- 
much as its agency is not invoked at the begin- 
ning of the development of the new creature. 
Contrariwise, the development of the new crea- 
ture amongst the higher animals is always com- 
menced by the mother alone ; is always com- 
menced during the mother's fcetal and larval 
life ; and is always in the beginning a process 
of gemmation or segmentation — an outgrowth 
of a portion of the mother's own body. When 
the development has reached a certain stage of 
progression — a stage as high and as complex as 
can be attained by the unaided action of the 
maternal forces — and when, without some addi- 
tional energy, the development would be ar- 
rested and the effort to produce a new creature 
prove abortive, then it is that the mysterious 
agency of sex is invoked, and that the masculine 
energy becomes a factor of the advancing de- 
velopment. New conditions, both static and 
dynamic, are incorporated into the developing 
ovum, a more active evolution is established, 
and a higher development becomes possible of 
accomplishment. Let us return now to the fer- 
tilized human ovum, and mark the stages of 
evolution through which it passes, until it stands 
before us a fully developed human creature. 
The transition issurely astounding — from a mi- 
croscopic speck of homogeneous bioplasm to a 
man fearfully and wonderfully made. The most 
daring imagination might very well be staggered 
in the effort to grasp the tremendous conception. 
And yet the agencies at work are of the simplest 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



401 



possible character. They are these four: 1. The 
enlargement of cells. ' 2. The segmentation of 
cells. 3. The arrangement of cells. 4. The 
differentiation of cells. In their last analysis 
enlargement, segmentation, and differentiation 
are resolved into modifications of growth ; so 
that the fundamental processes of organization 
might be reduced to two, namely, the growth 
of cells, and their arrangement. If we had 
commenced with the unfertilized ovum, the first 
stage would have been that of the conjugation 
of cells. But this has been sufficiently consid- 
ered already. We found that the germinal 
vesicle is a nucleated bioplast, and that the sper- 
matozoon is also a nucleated bioplast. But the 
fertilized ovum which is the product of their 
conjugation is destitute of a nucleus — is homo- 
geneous and structureless. It finds its way into 
the uterine cavity, and attaches itself to the 
membrana decidua, by which it becomes in- 
vested just as did the original germ-cell in the 
ovarian stroma. But of these investments we 
have nothing to say. Our business is with the 
developing ovum. The first metamorphosis 
which this exhibits is the metamorphosis of 
growth, enlargement, continuous development 
— the metamorphosis of addition. The second 
metamorphosis which it exhibits is the meta- 
morphosis of segmentation, of discontinuous 
development — the metamorphosis of division. 
The single mass of bioplasm of the fecundated 
ovum is separated into many masses of bioplasm. 
But still for a time there is no differentiation 
among them. As far as we are able to judge, 
the segments, or segmentation spheres as they 
are called, are all exactly alike. They are all 
composed of unmixed bioplasm, of germinal mat- 
ter, and as yet there is no formed material — no 
signs of structure to be seen. Let it be under- 
stood without further mention that the two 
metamorphic processes already described, the 
process of growth and the process of segmenta- 
tion, continue indefinitely, and we will turn our 
attention to the next stage of the evolution. 
This next stage, the third, is a process of simple 
arrangement. It is a metamorphic of the whole 
mass of the ovum, not of its separate segments. 
26 



The segmentation spheres march like soldiers to 
their appropriate places, and arrange themselves 
into three ranks — the three germinal plates or 
blastodermic layers of the embryo. The first 
of these layers, the external layer, is called by 
Remak the sensational layer; the second or mid- 
dle layer, the motorial layer ; the third or in- 
ternal layer, the intestinal or glandular layer. 
The process of arrangement does not stop with 
the formation of these primitive blastodermic 
layers ; but other arrangements arise successively 
within the layers, secondary, tertiary, etc. — ar- 
rangements of continually increasing specialty 
and complexity, and out of these are developed 
the various tissues and organs of the completed 
organism. How these arrangements are accom- 
plished — whether as the result of spontaneous 
impulse and the faculty of amceboid motion on 
the part of the bioplasts concerned ; whether 
under the influence of external incident forces ; 
or whether through the concurrent action of 
both of these classes of causes — we will not stop 
to inquire. The indications of the antecedent 
causes are vague and shadowy; but the fact 
itself, of arrangement, is clear and demonstrable. 
This brings us to the fourth and last of the met- 
amorphic processes which are concerned in the 
development of the fcetus, namely, the meta- 
morphosis of differentiation. The arrangement 
of the bioplasts into rudimentary organs is al- 
ready, in a certain sense, a process of differen- 
tiation ; it is differentiation of the mass of the 
developing ovum. But the differentiation now 
to be discussed is the differentiation of the sep- 
arate and individual bioplasts constituting that 
mass. Biological analysis shows that the organ- 
ism is composed of organs, these organs of tis- 
sues, and these tissues of histological elements. 
Now it is to be specially noted here that every 
separate histological element, every muscle- 
fibre, every nerve-fibre, every epithelial cell, 
every constituent structural element of bone, 
cartilage, of connective tissue, and of all the 
tissues, is the product of the differential meta- . 
morphosis of a separate and individual bioplast. 
And inasmuch as in a fully developed human 
organism there are many millions of structural 



<j02 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



anatomical elements, so for the formation of 
these many millions of living bioplasts must 
have suffered metamorphosis and differentiation. 

"The natural history of every histological 
element involves these three problems: i. The 
derivation of the germinal bioplast out of which 
it is developed. 2. The character of the trans- 
formation to which it is subjected. 3. The cause 
of the special transformation which is in each 
case accomplished. 

"In the earlier stages of fcetal development, 
the germinal bioplasts which pass by differential 
metamorphosis into the elements of tissues are 
the segmentation-spheres of the ovum. In the 
later stages of foetal development, and during 
all the varying periods of life subsequent to 
birth, the original store of segmentation-spheres 
having been exhausted, the germinal bioplasts 
must be derived from some other source. But 
from what other source can they be derived ? 
There is but one possible answer. They are 
derived from the blood in the shape of white 
blood-corpuscles. I have already indicated, 
again and again, that the segmentation-spheres 
and the white blood-corpuscles are of the same 
nature — are homologues and analogues of one 
another. But is there any genetic connection 
between them ? Most assuredly there is. The 
white blood-corpuscles ire the lineal descend- 
ants of the original undifferentiated segments of 
the ovum, the inheritors of their features, their 
faculties and their functions. The process of 
segmentation, commenced in the microscopic 
ovum, continues through the entire period of 
fcetal evolution ; continues also through all the 
stages of infant and adult life; never ceases, 
indeed, until the organism which it has built up 
ceases to live. Nature never abandons a pro- 
cess which she has once adopted. She may, 
indeed, under the influence of changing circum- 
stances, modify it in many ingenious ways, and 
even to such an extent that its identity is diffi- 
cult of recognition. She may also supplement 
•it with secondary and auxiliary processes; and 
these in the progress of development may grad- 
ually increase in importance until the original 
process is overshadowed by them. Neverthe- 



less, it is true that nature never changes her 
mind, and never repudiates anything that she 
has once indorsed. While, then, it may be 
true that white blood-corpuscles arise by other 
methods than by segmentation of pre-existing 
bioplasts, as has been suggested in the section 
of this paper which treats of the origin of leu- 
cocytes, it is still not to be doubted that many 
of them may claim hereditary descent through 
perhaps a thousand intervening generations from 
the aboriginal unique cell of the impregnated 
ovum." 

Dr. Cochran is a member of the American 
Medical Association, and of the American Pub- 
lic Health Association; and holds the following 
positions in Alabama : Senior Counsellor and 
Senior Censor of the State Medical Association 
of Alabama; President of the Committee of 
Public Health ; President of the State Board 
of Medical 'Examiners; Health Officer of the 
State of Alabama ; County Physician for Mobile 
County. 

This biographical sketch, as far as it goes, is 
authentic and authoritative. The dates and 
facts have been verified by Dr. Cochran himself. 
It has been prepared chiefly by a distinguished 
lawyer of Mobile; but the section entitled 
"Characteristics" was contributed by an emi- 
nent physician of Montgomery. 



CAPTAIN JOHN A. ELMORE.* 

Alabama. 

HAVE often thought," says Dr. 
Johnson, " that there has rarely 
passed a life of which a judicious 
and faithful narrative would not 
be useful." If it be true that the 
biographies of common men would be instruc- 
tive, surely, even an imperfect account of the 
life and career of John Archer Elmore will not 
be devoid of interest and utility. 




* For the facts of this sketch we are largely indebted lo 
the speeches of Captain Waller L. Bragg, Major Henry C. 
Semple, and Colonel John W. A. Sanford, delivered he- 
fore the Supreme Court of Alabama. 




<*4^&-£, *^"*-7 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



403 



The lives of eminent statesmen and lawyers 
are not ordinarily eventful. They are occupied 
with principles, policies and opinions. Their 
actions are never of a nature easily perceived, 
readily comprehended and rapturously ap- 
plauded by the multitude. Their career is more 
celebrated for the admirable mental and moral 
qualities they display in the mastery of great 
principles, and their application of them to the 
affairs and interests of men, than for daring 
deeds or military leadership. Consequently the 
bare and truthful enumeration of their endow- 
ments not unfrequently seems to be fulsome 
eulogy. 

The life of Captain Elmore illustrates this 
remark. 

He was born in Laurens District, S. C, on 
the first day of April, 1809. His father, 
General John A. Elmore, a native of Prince 
Edward county, Va., was a soldier in the Conti- 
nental army; and after the ratification of peace 
between Great Britain and the United States he 
removed to South Carolina. There, having lost 
his first wife, he married Miss Nancy Martin, a 
member of a family greatly distinguished in the 
Revolutionary war; she was a sister of Hon. 
William D. Martin, member of Congress from 
South Carolina, and for many years a Judge of 
the District Courts of that State, and of Hon. 
Abram Martin, of Alabama. 

In 1 81 9 General Elmore migrated to Ala- 
bama, and settled in that part of Autauga now 
embraced in Elmore county. There, at the 
homestead on Mortar creek, still held by his 
descendants, he reared a large family, all of 
whom have been honorably connected with the 
history of the country. Hon. Franklin H. 
Elmore, United States Senator from South Caro- 
lina, who succeeded the lamented Calhoun, and 
Mr. Benjamin T. Elmore, of South Carolina, 
were children of the first marriage. The chil- 
dren of the second marriage who still survive 
are: Mrs. Dixon H. Lewis, and Judge Henry 
Elmore, of Texas ; William A. Elmore, of Lou- 
isiana, late Attorney-General of that State ; 
Mrs. James E. Scott, of Texas ; Mrs. Hearne, 
wife of Dr. J. T. Hearne, of Lowndes county; 



and Albert S. Elmore, who resides near the 
old homestead. General Rush Elmore died 
in Kansas, to which Territory he removed on 
his appointment by Mr. Pierce as Territorial 
Judge. The first wife of Governor Benjamin 
Fitzpatrick, another of his children, died many 
years ago. 

In 1S20 the subject of this sketch was sent 
back to South Carolina for the purpose of being 
educated, and in 1829 he graduated with distinc- 
tion at the South Carolina College, then under 
the presidency of the learned and famous 
Dr. Thomas Cooper. The benefit he derived 
from the tuition of this remarkable man was 
often perceived in subsequent years in the 
extent and thoroughness of his classical learn- 
ing ; in his singularly perspicuous style ; and 
in his almost unequalled powers of reason- 
ing. During his school-days in Laurens Dis- 
trict, his imagination was inflamed by the 
fireside tales of our Revolution, related not only 
by the heroes of that memorable struggle, but 
also by the ladies of his family and others who 
delighted to recount the hardships they had 
themselves endured as well as the daring deeds 
and wise counsels by which the liberty they 
enjoyed had been won and secured. No Caro- 
linian has forgotten the notable exploit of his 
ancestress, Mrs. Abram Martin, by which she 
obtained important information and conveyed it 
to General Greene ; or her defiant reply, when 
taunted with having seven sons in the Conti- 
nental army, in which she regretted that she did 
not have fifty ; or, when she was told, in glee- 
some mood by an inhuman British officer, that 
he had just seen the head of her son, William, 
shattered by a cannon-ball, simply said, without 
a sign of the agony she felt, " He could not have 
died in a nobler cause : " an answer only equalled, 
if it be equalled at all, by that of the Spartan 
mother, who being told of the death of her son, 
asked if he died with his face to the enemy. 

Surrounded by such influences, in his youth 
was laid the foundation of the broad charity, 
the ardent patriotism, the knowledge and love 
of free institutions which adorned and distin- 
guished his whole life. 



404 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



He studied law, more as an accomplishment 
than with the intention of pursuing it as a pro- 
fession ; and, marrying his cousin, Miss Laura 
Martin, daughter of the Hon. W. D. Martin, 
member of Congress from South Carolina, and 
afterwards Circuit Judge in that State, he re- 
moved, in 1834, to Lowndes county, Ala., and 
devoted himself to agriculture. The disasters 
which overwhelmed so many of the planters 
who emigrated from South Carolina about that 
time visited him also, and he was entirely 
ruined. Having lost his fortune (an experience 
which Lord Eldon said is necessary to success at 
the bar) he began the practice of his profession. 
In 1840 he was elected bank attorney of the 
State bank, and then removed to Montgomery. 
At that time he was in the full vigor of young 
manhood, familiar with all polite learning, well 
versed in the elementary principles of the law, 
but was entirely inexperienced in the practice; 
but notwithstanding this fact, he was brought 
at once into collision with the able bar at Mont- 
gomery. Among his competitors were the Hon. 
George Goldthwaite, afterwards a Judge of the 
Supreme Court and United States Senator; 
Chief-Justice E. S. Dargan, Nat. Harris, Hon. 
James E. Belser, Thomas S. Mays, I. W. Hayne, 
F. Bugbee, Hon. Henry W. Hilliard, General 
E. Y. Fair, and many other gifted and learned 
lawyers. 

The improper management of the affairs of the 
bank, combined with the general distress of the 
country, had caused the suspension of an im- 
mense amount of its paper; and the dockets of 
the courts were encumbered with cases in which 
the bank was interested. At one term, there 
were as many as fifteen hundred. These were 
under the sole charge of Captain Elmore. The 
preparation of them for trial required stupen- 
dous labor, and sunrise often found him indus- 
triously engaged in the study and preparation 
of his arguments. 

Such was the structure of his mind that it was 
perfectly adapted to his profession. His per- 
ceptive faculties were as quick and as unerring 
as those of a wild animal ; while his logic was 
as complete as if he were of reason all compact. 



This power enabled him to deduce correct con- 
clusions from principles, and skilfully to draw 
vital principles from books. Like Chief- Justice 
Marshall, he was more remarkable for his knowl- 
edge of the fundamentals of the law, and his 
ability to profit by them, than for his familiarity 
with decided cases. He saw everything in the 
dry light of intellect. This conduced to un- 
common accuracy. He never depended solely 
on his memory, or took anything for granted, 
or gave an opinion, or made an argument upon 
an impression. He examined all subjects with 
painstaking care. When he read a statute or 
judicial decision, he saw not only the words but 
perceived every letter and duly weighed every 
term. This peculiarity marked him in literature 
as well as in his profession. He never, even in 
sudden debate, offended the most critical taste 
by a false quantity ; and an incorrect quotation 
from the Latin classics seldom escaped his de- 
tection. In the practice of law he rarely over- 
looked the smallest details of a case ; while in 
the discussion of questions of constitutional law 
he was the peer of any jurist in our country. 
As an equity lawyer his powers were wonderful. 

Persons who observed his thorough knowledge 
of the principles and rules of practice in the 
Court of Chancery, and his readiness in the 
discussion of all questions arising from pleading 
and evidence, supposed that the power was a 
natural gift and not the result of labor. But it 
was by close and persistent study in his youth 
he obtained this excellence, and became the 
leader of the bar of the State, a position he held 
by the universal judgment of the fraternity. 

He was a wise counsellor, and the qualities 
which rendered him eminent in this regard, 
apart from his strong intellect, full and varied 
learning, industry and conscientious sense of 
duty, were the singular prudence and charity 
which seemed to control all his thoughts and 
conduct. A stainless integrity was observable 
not only in the transactions of business, but in 
all the relations of life, and in all the operations 
of his intellect. His arguments at the bar were 
subject to its authority. If the cause he advo- 
cated received the unqualified approbation of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



405 



his moral sense, his logic was absolutely unan- 
swerable ; if it did not have such approval, it 
never elicited his whole power. Sir Matthew 
Hale, at one time, resolved never to be engaged 
in a case which his conscience did not justify, 
but afterwards abandoned the resolution. What 
with him was a matter of deliberation and judg- 
ment was with Captain Elmore a matter of 
nature. No bad cause ever brought all his 
forces into action. This trait was the founda- 
tion of the confidence which all people reposed 
in him. They trusted him implicitly in all 
affairs of delicacy and importance. Possessing 
strong feelings, he recognized the ties of kin- 
ship, and the obligations arising from long and 
intimate intercourse with his fellows; but such 
sentiments could not partialize the unstooping 
firmness of his upright soul — consequently, his 
judgment in all matters submitted to him was 
received without reluctance. Inspired by this 
quality, uniformity of conduct was a marked 
characteristic. Prosperity never elated him, 
because it did not add to his merits ; and adver- 
sity did not overwhelm him, because it could 
not take away his character. 

In the attributes of a noble manhood, in 
courage, in devotion to truth, in love of justice, 
in patriotism, he was not excelled by any of his 
contemporaries. 

He was averse to public employment. He 
considered an officer as the servant of the State, 
of fame, and of the business pertaining to his 
office ; and, therefore, to preserve his freedom, 
he declined posts of honor. Few, by capacity 
to perceive and comprehend principles, to deal 
with facts and control circumstances, were bet- 
ter qualified to discharge the duties of high sta- 
tion. He even refused to become a Judge of 
the Supreme Court of Alabama, when that great 
office was formally tendered to him. It is true 
that, during the Creek war, he became Captain 
of a volunteer company; and in 1S37 was 
elected Senator from Lowndes county in the 
General Assembly. He consented to serve the 
State as Commissioner to South Carolina in 
1 86 1, when the measures for the Confederation 
of the Southern States were concerted ; and 



performed his mission with distinction and to 
the great satisfaction of the State. After the 
war he was sent as a Delegate to the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1865. In that body his 
services were invaluable. He contributed largely 
to the formation of a constitution which was 
not inferior to that of any State of the Union. 
His speech against the submission of the ques- 
tion of the emancipation of the negroes to a 
decision of the Federal Supreme Court was 
masterful. It was short, and grave, and sen- 
tentious, and comprehensive ; and resembles the 
speeches which adorn the pages of Thucydides. 
It showed the quality of his statesmanship, and 
that, had he desired, he could have been as 
conspicuous by the favor of the people, as he 
was great by the partiality of nature. 

Nature he loved in all her forms and moods — 

" The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, 
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields, 
All the genial ray of morning gilds, 
And all that echoes to the song of even — " 

had charms for him. He was fond of field 
sports, and knew the haunts and habits of all 
' ' beasts of venery and birds of game. ' ' The old 
men of Lowndes delight, even now, to recall the 
pleasures of the chase which they enjoyed with 
him in his youth, and seem to wonder that 
the skilful woodsman should have ever become 
the profound lawyer and wise statesman. They 
did not know that the winds blew and the 
waters rolled to him knowledge and power. 

Commencing practice with Hon. J. F. L. Cot- 
trell as his partner, Captain Elmore subsequently 
became associated with Isaac W. Hayne for 
some years until that gentleman's return to 
South Carolina, where, in 1847, he was made 
Attorney-General of the State. After this, 
William L. Yancey, retiring from Congress, 
removed to Montgomery, and was his partner in 
the practice until about the year i860. Chan- 
cellor Keyes, Mr. E. P. Morisette, William A. 
Gunter, Harris T. Gunter, and his son, V. M. 
Elmore, were associated with him in the practice 
at different times, and the firm was Elmore & 
Gunter at the date of his death. 



40 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



He was most happy in his domestic relations ; 
a lovely and devoted wife cheered all his labors, 
and by her fond sympathy sweetened all his 
toils. She died some twelve months before him, 
and though, until stricken by the fatal disease 
which carried him off, he performed all his 
duties with his accustomed diligence, he seemed 
never to have recovered from the blow. His 
paternal care for his children was repaid by their 
affectionate reverence. 

His stature was grand in its proportions, his 
features clear-cut and classical. Intellectual 
strength, noble courage, gentle charity, playful 
humor, and stern integrity beamed from his 
countenance. 

This gifted and notable man, after a lingering 
illness, died on the first day of August, 1878, 
universally lamented by the people of Alabama. 



PROFESSOR T. G. RICHARDSON. 

5-. Louisiana. 

( pv?OBIAS GIBSON RICHARDSON was 
^1 born January 3d, 1S27, at Lexington, 

Ky., and is the son of William Rich- 
ardson, for many years before his death 
Cashier of the Northern Bank of 
Kentucky, Louisville. His mother was Synia 
Higgins, whose father was a cotemporary and 
personal friend of Daniel Boone. In 1S37 he 
removed with his parents to Louisville, Ky. ; 
and in 1845 matriculated in the Medical Depart- 
ment of the University of Louisville. In the 
same year he entered the office of Professor S. D. 
Gross, M. D., as a private pupil, having as com- 
panion Dr. Nathan Bozeman, now of New York, 
who was also his classmate at the Louisville Uni- 
versity. In 1S47 ne was appointed resident 
student of the Louisville Marine Hospital, but 
continued his daily attendance at Professor 
Gross' office, and submitted to examinations in 
pathological anatomy and surgery. He was 
graduated in the Medical Department of the 
University of Louisville in the spring of 184S, 
and immediately afterwards was appointed by 
the faculty Demonstrator of Anatomy, which 



position he filled for eight years. During all this 
period he continued in almost daily attendance 
upon the office of Professor Gross, and upon 
terms of the most confidential friendship with 
that distinguished surgeon, who infused into him 
his enthusiastic love of the science of medicine 
and surgery, and aided and encouraged him in 
his studies. During a large portion of this 
period he was engaged in anatomical investiga- 
tions, and in 1853 published a large volume 
entitled "Elements of Human Anatomy," be- 
sides occasional contibutions on surgical diseases 
to the Western Journal of Medicine. This med- 
ical periodical being suspended in 1855, he 
founded the Louisville Review, in connection 
with Professor Gross. Resigning the position 
of Demonstrator of Anatomy at Louisville in 
1856, he was at once offered the chair of Anat- 
omy in the New York Medical College; of Sur- 
gery, in the Kentucky School of Medicine, and 
of Anatomy in the Medical Department of the 
Pennsylvania College, at Philadelphia. He 
decided to accept the last, and removed to 
Philadelphia in the fall of 1S56. While there 
he established, in conjunction with Professor 
Gross, who had accepted the chair of Surgery in 
the Jefferson Medical College, the North Amer- 
ican Medico -Chirnrgieal Review, and continued 
to act as junior editor until its suspension, in 
1S62, although he had in the meantime removed 
to another field of duty. While at the Pennsyl- 
vania Medical College he was associated with 
Professors Alfred Stille, Francis Gurney Smith, 
and other gentlemen well known to the profes- 
sion throughout the United States as teachers 
and authors. In 185S he was invited to the 
chair of Anatomy in the Medical Department 
of the University of Louisiana to succeed Pro- 
fessor Josiah Nott, M. D., and removed to New 
Orleans in the latter part of that year. This 
school was at that time one of the largest in the 
country, and with such distinguished professors 
as the late Warren Stone, M. D., Thomas Hunt, 
M. D., and others of like distinction, attracted 
annually more than four hundred students. He 
was at the same time appointed one of the 
attending surgeons to the Charity Hospital,' and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



407 



lectured upon clinical surgery in addition to his 
didactic lectures upon anatomy in the Medical 
College. He was the first to perform success- 
fully the operation for vesico-vaginal fistula, 
after the method of Dr. Nathan Bozeman, 
which had then but recently been introduced 
to the profession. He soon became engaged 
in a large surgical practice, which was only 
interrupted by the outbreak of the civil war. 
Leaving New Orleans before its capture by the 
Federal forces, in 1862, he joined the Confed- 
erate army of Tennessee, of which he was made 
practically, although not nominally, Assistant 
Medical Director ; and subsequently Medical 
Inspector on the staff of Major-General Braxton 
Bragg. He was present on the field at the 
battles of Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and Mis- 
sionary Ridge, in the second of which it became 
his melancholy duty to amputate the thigh of 
the gallant Major-General Hood. He accom- 
panied General Bragg, after the retirement of 
that distinguished officer from the Army of the 
Tennessee to Richmond, where he continued 
his duties as Medical Inspector during the sum- 
mer of 1864, and by request of the surgeon in 
charge, Dr. Hancock, and the attending sur- 
geons, Drs. Cabell, Hoyt, Tom and Wellford, 
performed a large part of the capital operations 
at that immense hospital after the battles of 
Rapidan, Spottsylvania Court-House and Cold 
Harbor. He subsequently accompanied Gen- 
eral Eragg to North Carolina, as Medical 
Director of that department, and was present on 
the field at the battle of Averysboro and also 
that of Benton ville, where a mere handful of 
Confederates under General J. E. Johnston 
made their last unsuccessful fight for independ- 
ence. Still adhering to the fortunes of his 
friend and chief, General Bragg, he joined the 
retreating column of government officials, with 
President Davis at its head, and continued with 
them until the formal dissolution of the Confed- 
erate Cabinet, at Washington, Ga., and the 
dispersion of its members. He returned to New 
Orleans in the succeeding fall and resumed his 
position in the University of Louisiana, and was 
immediately chosen Dean of the Medical Faculty. 



In 1873, upon the resignation of Professor War- 
ren Stone from the chair of Surgery, he became 
his successor, which position he still occupies. In 
1877 he was elected President of the American 
Medical Association at its annual meeting in 
Chicago, and presided at the subsequent meet- 
ing in Buffalo, N. Y. His inaugural address on 
this occasion was devoted mainly to State Med- 
icine, and contained a number of valuable sug- 
gestions as to the best methods of promoting the 
development of this, the most important depart- 
ment of medical science and art. He says : 

" It is a trite theory that knowledge penetrates 
society from above ; that, starting from the lim- 
ited mountain-top occupied by the educated few, 
it slowly percolates through the subjacent strata, 
and, after a while perhaps, in a greatly diluted 
state, it reaches the minds of the many who 
form the lowest stratum. I admit the truth of 
the illustration in so far as it expresses the 
direction which knowledge takes, but I deny the 
inference that the latter descends by its own 
weight; that those who possess it have only to 
open their mouths, and their words shall, by 
their specific gravity, filter through all inter- 
vening grades, and refresh the thirsty souls of 
those who are at the bottom. This is certainly 
a very comfortable doctrine for those who live 
nearest the heavens ; but, unfortunately, it is not 
true. Knowledge 'abides alone,' unless it be 
forced into ranks below, and it is the bounden 
duty of those who possess it to make provision 
for its diffusion. ' No man liveth to himself 
alone,' and the Author of all truth has pro- 
nounced dire maledictions against those who 
hold the key of knowledge and refuse to open 
the door to those who are without. Sanitary 
science is no exception to the rule. It must be 
taught in the family, in the infant school, in the 
academy; taught in the workshop, in the factory, 
in the church; taught in the university, in the 
forum, in the legislative halls ; taught in the 
city, taught in the country, taught everywhere. 
We have our Bowditches and Shattucks and 
Bakers and Cabells, and others of like wisdom 
and zeal, to direct the great work, but we need 
missionaries and colporteurs who will go into the 



4o8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



streets and byways and proclaim the truths of 
the new way, persuading all who will listen, that 
health and long life are possible to multitudes 
of those who now sicken and die before they 
attain the age of maturity. And whence are 
these teachers to come? I answer that, for the 
present at least, they are to be furnished chiefly 
by the medical profession. Indeed, every phy- 
sician should be a worshipper at the shrine of 
rosy-cheeked Hygeia, the daughter of his old 
god Esculapius, and should exert his utmost 
influence to spread abroad the knowledge of the 
elementary truths which underlie the whole sys- 
tem of sanitation. By doing so we will prepare 
the way for the enactment and execution of sani- 
tary laws. Hand in hand with the physician 
should be seen the minister of the Christian 
religion, who, like the former, is brought by his 
calling into closest relations with all grades of 
society, and thus far is equally fitted to become 
a messenger of health, not only to those who 
belong to his pastoral charge, but to all who 
come within the circle of his personal influence. 
I do not know what the theological seminaries 
are doing with this question ; but I do know 
that the oldest system of public hygiene of which 
we have any record was formulated and enforced 
by Moses, the divinely appointed head of the 
church under the old dispensation, and the type 
of Him who, sixteen hundred years afterwards, 
assumed in person the leadership for all time to 
come. If that great religious teacher in those 
far away times considered it his duty to protect 
the members of his flock from preventable dis- 
eases by enacting wise sanitary regulations, it 
seems to me that his successors, although not 
possessed of his extraordinary authority, might 
at least preach the doctrine and endeavor to 
practise it. If consulted by them, I should 
therefore certainly advise that as a preparation 
for engaging in the duties of the pastor the 
theological student should pursue a course of 
study in sanitary science as a means of doing 
much good in a moral as well as in a material 
sense. ....... 

" I suggest that a special committee of lead- 
ing sanitarians be appointed to prepare a some- 



what elaborate address to the profession and the 
public, setting forth the transcendent impor- 
tance of the subject, presenting a summary of 
sanitary science, pointing out the best methods 
of studying and teaching the same, and demon- 
strating the great benefits to be derived there- 
from by the individual and the community in 
general. Without attempting to portray the 
special features that should appear in such an 
address, I take the liberty of saying that it 
should not omit to insist upon the great neces- 
sity of teaching the young not only the laws of 
health, but the elements of physiology which 
are essential to a proper comprehension of the 
principles of hygiene. In my opinion such in- 
struction cannot be commenced too early in 
life, and should progress pari passu with that in 
geography, grammar, and history, so that a boy 
or girl ten years old should feel as much dis- 
graced by ignorance of the principal organs of 
the body and their functions as by ignorance of 
the differences between an island and a lake, or 
a mountain and a valley. I am not unaware of 
the serious difficulties to be encountered in the 
attempt to introduce these studies into schools 
for the young, of the objections arising from 
want of competent instructors, and of the strong 
repugnance which many parents feel at the bare 
thought of instilling such knowledge into the 
minds of their children. The last was brought 
home to me most forcibly not long ago, when a 
gentleman of average common-sense and good 
position in society, withdrew his daughter, a 
girl of twelve or fourteen years of age, from a 
first-class school with which I am acquainted, 
because a human skeleton was brought into the 
class-room by a well-known professor of physi- 
ology, who had kindly volunteered to teach the 
pupils a few facts in regard to respiration and 
circulation. But I am sure that by the publica- 
tion of facts, and by patience and perseverance 
on the part of medical men, all this sort of 
opposition will be overcome, and that before 
another generation shall grow up into manhood 
and womanhood no school or seminary will be 
considered complete in its appointments with- 
out a special teacher of sanitary science." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



409 



On April 10th, 1879, a complimentary dinner 
was given m Philadelphia to Professor S. D. 
Gross by his medical friends, in commemoration 
of his fifty-first year in the profession of medi- 
cine, and in response to an invitation to attend 
this memorable event in the medical annals of 
this country, Professor Richardson addressed 
the following letter to the committee of arrange- 
ments : 

"New Orleans, April id, 1S79. 
"To D. H. Agnew, Thomas G. Morton, R. 
J. Levis, and J. Ewing Mears, Secretary. 

"Gentlemen of the Committee: Permit 
me to thank you sincerely for your polite invi- 
tation to attend a complimentary dinner, to be 
given on the 10th inst., to Professor S. D. 
Gross, 'commemorative of his fifty-first profes- 
sional birth-day, and at the same time to express 
my great regret that I shall be unable to take 
advantage of your distinguished courtesy. The 
occasion is one which draws upon the strongest 
sentiment of my nature, and in contemplating 
this evidence of the love and veneration with 
which my noble old master is regarded by those 
with whom he has been associated for the past 
twenty-three years, I envy you the privilege of 
sitting down with him as your guest. Thirty- 
four years ago I entered his office as a private 
pupil, and enjoyed his society almost daily for a 
period of more than twelve years, during which 
time, and ever since, my esteem for him as a 
man in whom there is no guile, my admiration 
for him as a true physician, and my love for 
him as a personal friend have continuously 
grown and strengthened with increasing years. 
It is not needful that I should speak to you of 
his many virtues — of the purity of his life ; of 
his sacred regard for the marital relation ; of his 
tender devotion to his family ; of his ready sym- 
pathy with the distressed ; of his delicate con- 
sideration for his juniors ; of his unremitting in- 
terest in every scheme for the advancement of 
medical science, the prevention of disease, and 
the care of the infirm ; of the vast benefit which 
he has conferred upon the profession by his ex- 
ample no less than by his precepts ; of his un- 
ceasing labors; of his courteous demeanor towards 



all; of the delightful cheerfulness of his tempera- 
ment, of the light which he ever carries into the 
darkened chambers of the sick ; or of the in- 
numerable other beautiful traits of character and 
admirable qualities of mind which combine to 
make him what he is, a friend of the young, a 
teacher of teachers, a model physician, an illus- 
trious citizen, a benefactor of his race. These 
are all as familiar to you as to me, but at the 
mention of his name they crowd so thickly upon 
my attention that I cannot wholly repress their 
expression. In consideration of the fact that 
my early professional life was immediately fash- 
ioned by his fatherly hand ; that his example 
has ever been to me a pillar of cloud by day, 
and a pillar of fire by night ; and that his per- 
sonal confidence is treasured in my heart as a 
jewel of priceless worth, I beg, that when you 
take your seats at table, you will allow me, by 
your hands, to place upon his breast the accom- 
panying simple badge, as a token of remem- 
brance from his devoted pupil, who, on this 
occasion, can only in spirit partake of his joy. 
"With renewed thanks for the honor you have 
conferred upon me, I am, very truly, your ser- 
vant, "T. G. Richardson." 

For several years past Professor Richardson 
has spent the three months of mid-summer in 
travelling, and has thus traversed a good deal 
of ground seldom trodden by tourists. He has 
crossed the Atlantic several times, taking a 
different route upon each occasion, and has in 
this way made himself familiar with almost every 
country in Europe, including Russia and Tur- 
key. He has spent two summers in Mexico, 
ranging over the country from Oaxaca to Cuer- 
navaca, and on one occasion ascended the snow- 
capped volcano of Popocatapetl. He has vis- 
ited the Sandwich Islands, scaled the Peruvian 
Andes upon the famous Aroyo Railroad, as- 
cended the Amazon river, and visited all the 
accessible localities in the neighborhood of Rio 
de Janeiro. Nor has he neglected his own 
country, having penetrated it in every direction 
from the Adirondacks and White Mountains in 
the East, to the Yosemite Valley in the West. 



4io 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In all these wanderings he was accompanied by 
his wife, who was one of the three ladies who 
were the first of their sex to look into the crater 
of Popocatapetl, at an elevation of eighteen 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. The 
following graphic description of the ascent to 
the summit is extracted from a letter to his 
brother in Louisville: 

"The night was cloudless; the moon, about 
two-thirds full, shone with an effulgent splendor; 
and the highly rarefied atmosphere gave a dis- 
tinctness to distant objects which was truly 
startling in its first effect. All around lay the 
dark pine-forest, the nearer trees standing out 
in the bright light like spectre sentinels about 
the little hut. Away down in the valley villages 
and cultivated fields were sleeping quietly under 
the shadows of the distant mountains. Beside 
the quiet valley, and beyond the dim outline of 
the forest, towered the great volcano. Its 
broad, black base was lost in the dark shadows 
below, but its magnificent dome of pure white 
snow, flooded with the softly brilliant light of 
the moon, projected itself in bold relief against 
the background of the sky. From its summit a 
faint column of smoke, curling calmly into the 
depths above, bore testimony to hidden fires 
glowing with warmth beneath the cold crust of 
ice by which they are protected from the winds 
and storms of the universe without. By one 
o'clock a. m., we were all in the saddle, and, 
following the guides in single file beneath the 
solemn shadows of the forest, across the deep 
barranca, and up the long, dreary slope of heavy 
black sand which extends quite up to the snow- 
line, we arrived at the latter point, much to the 
relief of the poor panting horses, at half-past 
three a. m. Here we dismounted, and discard- 
ing overcoats, blankets, and waterproofs, grasped 
our strong Alpine stocks and began the toilsome 
ascent. For a little way the crust of the snow 
was scarcely firm enough to bear our weight, 
and we frequently sank to our knees; but higher 
up it was like ice, and, in order to obtain a 
foothold, the foremost guide cut with a spade, 
fashioned for the purpose, deep notches in the 
snow, both for himself and those who followed 



after. As the inclination up which we were 
travelling is not less than forty-five degrees, and 
in some places more, it was, of course, impossi- 
ble to pursue a straight ascending line, but, on 
the contrary, a zigzag course was absolutely 
necessary, and for the same reason it was equally 
important to place our feet accurately in the 
steps made for their reception, and steady our 
bodies by leaning upon our stocks, carefully 
driven into the snow at each successive move- 
ment. If perchance a mis-step were made, and 
the foothold lost, a slide or a roll to the sand 
below the snow-line would be inevitable. In 
case of such an accident, the preservation of the 
life of the individual, supposing that he had 
attained a considerable elevation, would depend 
entirely upon whether he should happen to 
slide down feet foremost. If, on the contrary, 
he should fall crosswise, as is more probable, 
and go rolling down with an ever-increasing 
speed, life would have become extinct long 
before his bruised and broken body could possi- 
bly strike the sand. A few laborers who work 
in the crater have been lost in this way, but up 
to the present time no visitor has met with such 
a fall. The latter fact may be partly explained, 
however, by reference to the exceedingly small 
number of tourists who make any serious 
attempts to reach the crater. The great 
majority of visitors content themselves with a 
ride to the snow-line, where the sight of the 
vast slippery steep, apparently inaccessible to 
human feet, wisely deters them from making the 
attempt. Our party, consisting of individuals 
of various ages, sizes, and activities, did not, of 
course, make equal progress, the heavier and 
the older necessarily requiring more time. 
Mrs. Richardson and your humble servant 
coming under the latter category, had the 
honor of bringing up the rear. Our faithful 
guide, Evaristo, bore patiently with our slow 
movements and frequent stops, and did all in 
his power to encourage us. He could not 
otherwise assist us, for as there was but one line 
of steps, and nothing with which to steady the 
body or take hold of with the hands save the 
stock, every one was obliged to depend upon 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



411 



his own powers. However, in order to guard 
Mrs. Richardson against rolling down the 
mountain, in case she should lose her footing, 
he very considerately passed a rope around her 
waist, and securing the other end across his 
shoulders, ' played horse ' all the way. For- 
tunately no such accident occurred, Dut doubt- 
less the presence of the rope gave greater confi- 
dence to the fair driver than she would otherwise 
have had. The foremost of the party reached 
the summit, nearly eighteen thousand feet above 
the level of the sea, about half-past seven o'clock, 
followed very soon by all the others except the 
last two, who were an hour and a half later. 
Finally, however, we all stood within the edge 
of the crater, and for the first time the secrets 
of this vast chasm were revealed to the eyes of 
the fairer if not the feebler sex. 

"But before describing what we saw within 
this comparatively limited space, let me direct 
your attention for a moment to the vast but in- 
describable view which stretched out from the 
base of the mountain immediately below us to 
the farthest limit of our vision, greatly increased 
as this was by the rarity and almost preternatural 
clearness of the atmosphere through which we 
looked. Truly, 'all the kingdoms of the world ' 
seemed to lie beneath us, and as the eye ranged 
over the immense scene, great mountains seemed 
to have contracted into mere knolls, extensive 
valleys into narrow vales, large towns into mere 
spots, and the city of Mexico itself, with its two 
hundred and twenty-five thousand people, ap- 
peared like a toy village built of small, wooden 
blocks, and its broad lakes like mill-ponds over- 
shadowed by the adjacent hills. To this gen- 
eral statement an exception must be made in 
favor of Orizaba, the only rival of Popocatapetl 
in North America. Although nearly fifty miles 
distant, the majestic mountain lost but little in 
comparison with surrounding objects, but, on the 
contrary, presented a boldness of form and grace 
of outline which commanded our highest admi- 
ration. As for Iztaccihuatl, or ' The Woman in 
White,' her very close proximity saved her from 
much apparent diminution, but, nevertheless, 
being nearly two thousand feet below us, her 



snowy top presented no obstruction to our vision. 
The Nevada de Toluca, the smallest of the four 
snow-capped mountains of Mexico, situated far 
away to the west, was distinctly visible, and 
formed a striking object among the lesser and 
darker cones by which it was surrounded. But 
what shall I say of the splendid display of clouds 
floating far below us, covering, as it were, with 
a sea of frozen foam all the adjacent valleys, and 
concealing entirely from view the darker fea- 
tures of the base of the mountain as seen from 
the level of the Rancho ? No delineator of the' 
scenery of the clouds, whether he wield the 
pencil of a Claude or the pen of a Ruskin, can 
convey to the mind of him who has not ob- 
served with his own eyes the strangely beautiful 
picture here spread out beneath us. With my 
poor powers of description I dare not, there- 
fore, attempt to give you the faintest conception 
of the scene, but, adopting with becoming rever- 
ence the words addressed to the mystic seer of 
the New Testament, when in a vision he had 
passed the portals of the heavenly world, and, 
dazzled by its awful splendors, stood bewildered 
upon the borders of a crystal sea, I can only say, 
' Come and see.' 

"The lip of the crater over which we now 
descended, about a hundred feet to the ledge of 
rock upon which the windlass is fixed, is oval in 
shape, irregularly oblique in its direction, and a 
little less than three miles in circumference. 
The bottom was covered with snow, except in 
the vicinity of the 'breathing holes,' and ap- 
peared from above to be nearly horizontal, but 
in fact dips from one side to the other at an 
angle of not less than fifty degrees. The sides 
are composed for the most part of a grayish 
red porphyry, are nearly verticle in direction, 
and, owing somewhat to the obliquity of the lip, 
but more particularly to the inclination of the 
floor, vary in height at different points from four 
hundred to a thousand feet. The 'breathing 
holes' just mentioned are three or four openings 
several feet each in diameter situated in the 
lower part of the floor. From these a sulphur- 
ous smoke is continually rising, and, when the 
wind is in a certain quarter, fills the whole 



4i: 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



crater, much to the discomfort of the workmen. 
The air being very quiet, we were not. thus in- 
commoded. All around the borders of the 
holes sulphur is continually deposited, and, 
being there subjected to a heat just sufficient to 
melt it, large stalactital masses are formed, some 
of which are very beautiful. In addition to 
these lumps of pure sulphur, large quantities are 
precipitated in the porous volcanic rocks imme- 
diately around, from which a considerable quan- 
tity is obtained by smelting down at the 
'Rancho.' The windlass is placed upon that 
side of the wall where the depth is the least, 
and, being about a hundred feet below the edge, 
requires a rope of only about 275 feet in length 
to reach the bottom. By means of this the 
sulphur and sulphurous stones are raised, and 
the laborers ascend and descend. Not more 
than a third of a mile from the point where the 
rope strikes the bottom is a hut in which the 
workmen live for two or three weeks together, 
being partially protected from the inhalation of 
the sulphurous steam by pieces of thick woollen 
cloth worn over their mouths and nostrils. 
Nearly all of our party descended by the rope, 
but owing to the steep declivity of the bottom, 
did not venture as far as the 'breathing holes.' 
Notwithstanding the rarity of the atmosphere at 
the top of the mountain, the barometer indica- 
ting a pressure of only fifteen and a half inches, 
respiration is not sensibly affected when the 
body is at rest, and I am convinced by my own 
experience and that of every member of our 
party, some of whom possessed rather less than 
the average pulmonary development, that many 
of the stories told by similar travellers to the 
effect that dizziness, bleeding at the nose, vio- 
lent palpitation of the heart, etc., are not un- 
common under such circumstances, have but 
little foundation in fact. It is true that com- 
paratively slight exertion produced in us all 
rapid and deep inspirations, and a decided ac- 
celeration of the heart's action, and it is this 
and not the tax upon the muscles of the legs that 
renders climbing such high elevations laborious 
and fatiguing. But a few moments' rest restores 
the usual equilibrium, and no inconvenience re- 



sulted. Having remained in the crater two or 
three hours, enjoying to its fullest extent the 
novelty and grandeur of the situation, we toiled 
slowly up from the windlass to the edge, for the 
purpose of descending the mountain. This lat- 
ter operation does not consist, as you might 
suppose, in retracing, step by step, the zigzag 
path along which we had ascended with so much 
difficulty and danger, but, startling as it may 
appear to you, in simply sliding down upon the 
surface of the snow. As you are aware that the 
distance to be overcome in this way is not less 
than four thousand feet, probably more, I think 
I hear you exclaim, with uplifted hands, 'Fright- 
ful ! impossible ! ' Not so, for it is not only 
practicable, but downright jolly, and we all 
enjoyed it greatly. One of the ladies even 
averred that it was worth climbing the moun- 
tain to have the fun of sliding down. The man- 
ner of conducting the sport is as follows: The 
guide takes a palm-leaf mat or petate, about two- 
thirds the size of an ordinary hearth-rug, lays it 
lengthwise upon the frozen surface, and imme- 
diately below its lower edge drives his stock 
deep into the snow. He then takes his seat 
upon the petate near its lower extremity, his 
face looking down hill and his legs widely 
separated, resting upon the snow. The pas- 
senger sits in like manner behind, with his legs 
thrown around the body of the guide, and his 
heels resting upon the thighs of the latter. If 
there is a second passenger, he takes his seat be- 
hind the first and disposes of his legs in the 
same way. When all is ready, the guide seizes 
firmly hold of a small rope-handle attached to 
the lower edge of the petate between his thighs, 
pulls up his stock, which up to this moment has 
kept him in position, and immediately the 
petate with its living load glides down the in- 
clined plane, the guide steering it with his 
stock, and retarding its speed, if necessary, by 
pressing his heels into the snow. In this man- 
ner, one after another, we went sailing down 
the long, smooth slope, the gentlemen hallooing, 
the ladies laughing, the snow flying off upon 
either side like water from the prow of a fast 
steamer, and the guides calling to us continually 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4i3 



to keep steady on our seats. It was a novel and 
exciting race, I assure you, and all agreed that 
it was the most splendid ' coasting ' we had 
ever experienced. Our only regret was that it 
was so soon ended, for in six minutes from the 
time of starting we accomplished the distance 
which had required nearly six hours' hard labor 
to traverse in an opposite direction." 

Among other places of interest visited during 
the same summer tour were Jalapa, the valley 
of Cuernavaca, the ancient palace of Cortez, and 
those wondrous specimens of pre-historic Amer- 
ican architecture — the Ruins of Xochicalco. A 
brief description of the last is all our space will 
permit us to give here. 

" The ruins of Xochicalco are situated for the 
most part upon a single hill, which, although 
not more than three hundred feet above the roll- 
ing plateau immediately around, owing to the 
elevation of the latter may be seen from a great 
distance, save in one direction where the moun- 
tains approach within a few miles. So com- 
pletely is it covered now, however, with stunted 
trees, shrubbery, vines, and weeds that we could 
discover no evidence of artificial work upon it 
until we reached its very base. Here we crossed 
a d ~ep and broad ditch, walled with cemented 
stone, and extending entirely around the hill, a 
distance of about three miles. The walls of 
this trench are for the most part broken down, 
or so overgrown with vines and brush-wood as 
to be scarcely accessible except with great labor; 
but in many places they are as perfect as when 
first constructed, and measure upon the upper 
side six or eight feet in height. Above this 
point the slope presents a series of four or five 
high terraces, supported by slightly inclined 
walls composed of large rough masses of porous 
volcanic stone, called tepite, closely cemented 
with mortar. No single terrace, however, en- 
tirely encircles the hill, but all are intersected 
by broad ridges, less inclined than the general 
surface, and terminated by an abrupt wall. 
Whether these buttresses were thrown up artifi- 
cially, which seems most likely, or consist of 
natural irregularities upon the surface, is 'not 
perfectly clear ; but in either case they evidently 



served as bastions, from which the sides of the 
terraces would be commanded in case an attack- 
ing party succeeded in reaching one or more of 
the latter. The dilapidated state of the works 
permitted us, at some risk of tumbling back- 
ward, to ride on horseback slowly and in a zig- 
zag course to the summit of the hill. Here, in 
the centre of a broad esplanade, but concealed 
in great measure by small trees and tangled 
undergrowth, lie the ruins of the most remark- 
able specimen of ancient American architecture 
yet discovered north of Yucatan and Guatemala. 
Our reading had not, we must confess, been 
sufficiently extensive or minute to prepare us 
for the extraordinary sight which presented 
itself when we pressed through the bushes and 
stood face to face in close proximity to this 
striking relic of a bygone and unknown people. 
The first effect was startling, and, seized with a 
mysterious awe, we halted and looked aside, 
fearing lest we were entering upon forbidden 
ground. The human figures upon the wall, 
though somewhat grotesque in shape, seemed 
instinct with sudden life, and, though motion- 
less and silent, to mock our ignorant curiosity 
and warn us from the spot. It was no little 
while, indeed, before we could allay our super- 
stitious fears and calm our excited imaginations 
so as to scrutinize the work with philosophic 
thought and deliberation. It has been satisfac- 
torily determined by archaeologists that the 
original monument or temple was a five-storied 
truncated pyramid, constructed entirely of hewn 
stone, and measuring about fifty feet in height. 
Of this only the base or lower story now re- 
mains, which is rectangular in form, its lines 
corresponding exactly to the points of the com- 
pass, and measuring along its upper edge sixty- 
four from north to south and fifty-eight from 
east to west. It consists of huge dressed granite 
blocks, some of them eight feet in length and 
nearly three feet in breadth and thickness. 
These are most accurately fitted without cement, 
and form in position an inclined wall fifteen 
and a-half feet high, which presents a well- 
finished plinth below; then a broad surface 
divided into two long panels which extend the 



414 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



whole length of the wall ; next a frieze, also 
divided into two panels; and, lastly, a promi- 
nent cornice by which it is terminated above. 
The whole of the frieze, which is three and 
a-half feet in width, and the two' broad panels 
are crowded with figures in bass-relief, having 
a projection of four or five inches ; and as they 
extend from one stone to another, it is more 
than probable that they were sculptured after 
the wall was erected. It is impossible to give 
an intelligible description of these carvings 
without'the aid of illustrative drawings, of which 
none are to be had outside of certain books, and 
not always found there very correctly given. 
They consist, however, for the most part of the 
human form, with front view of the body and 
face in profile, a tunic around the loins, heavy 
necklace of round balls about the throat, and a 
profusion of curved lines drooping from the 
head and supposed to represent feathers. Some 
of the figures terminate below in a kind of 
feather brush or scroll ; some are reclining, some 
standing, and others apparently walking, hold- 
ing erect in the right hand a club shaped like a 
cricket bat. There are also well-defined rab- 
bits, heads of nondescript animals like alligators 
with drooping lines from the interior of 'their 
open mouths and the tops of their heads, hiero- 
glyphic letters, circles enclosing a cross, and near 
the last a figure like the letter V on its side 
(thus, <;), which I have fancied was intended 
for a pair of dividers. Nearly the same figures 
and groupings are repeated upon each of the 
two broad panels and upon the four sides, and 
another set upon the two halves of the frieze, 
and the same upon the four sides. Among the 
latter is a very remarkable representation of a 
man sitting cross-legged with a cap upon his 
head, from which projects forward the head and 
half the body of a snake, and over his eyes 
what appears to be a pair of spectacles without 
glasses. 

"On the western face of the ruin are the re- 
mains of a stone stairway, which is said, by those 
who saw the building before it was so nearly de- 
molished, to have terminated on the top of the 
first terrace opposite three portals communicat- 



ing with the interior of the pyramid. In the 
sides of the hill, a short distance from the sum- 
mit, are three or four large openings leading to 
subterranean excavations, two of which we fol- 
lowed to the distance of twenty or thirty yards, 
where they terminated abruptly in moderate 
sized halls ten or twelve feet high, but without 
any stone facings or cement. A third one, 
which was explored by Dr. Skelton and Mr. 
Drees, led to a large vaulted hall partially walled 
with cemented stones and supported by pillars 
left in making the excavation. In the centre 
of the arched ceiling they observed a large open- 
ing, occupied by a hollow cylinder of earthen- 
ware, the upper orifice of which was closed as 
if by something having fallen into it. This hall 
is said to be situated underneath the pyramid, 
and its opening to communicate with the in- 
terior of the latter. The floor of the tunnel 
leading to the hall is cemented, and a short dis- 
tance within the entrance I found the root and 
shaft of a small deer's horn, about eight inches 
in length. Upon searching the ground around 
the pyramid and upon the hill terraces below, 
we found great quantities of small fragments of 
ancient pottery, but none of the clay heads that 
abound around the pyramids of Teotihuacan, and 
not the smallest piece of obsidian. The latter 
fact is almost positive proof of the more recent 
erection of the latter monuments. . . . 'Who- 
ever may have been the builders of the pyramid 
of Xochicalco, it is quite evident that they lived 
before the time of the constructors of the pyra- 
mids of Teotihuacan, for the reason already 
stated that they did not understand the use of 
obsidian, which was so largely employed by the 
latter in the manufacture of cutting instruments, 
arrow-heads, and the like. That they possessed 
great taste in architecture, most wonderful skill 
in some of the mechanic arts, and a tolerably 
clear knowledge of scientific engineering, no 
one can doubt after an examination of the 
ruins. 

"When it is borne in mind that the immense 
blocks of granite, of which the base of the pyra- 
mid is formed, were brought from a great dis- 
tance — for there is no appearance of this species 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4i5 



of rock within many miles of the spot — that 
these were carried to the top of a steep hill 
three hundred feet high ; that they were elevated 
into a stately edifice, and that they were beauti- 
fully sculptured, all this without the use of iron 
or steel, and, so far as we know, without the 
knowledge of any of the modern contrivances 
for moving heavy masses, or even beasts of bur- 
den, we cannot deny them a high rank in the 
arts and refinements of civilized life. They 
possessed copper and tin, and probably com- 
pounded them into a species of bronze of which 
they constructed tools; but it is scarcely possible 
that with these they could have dressed and 
carved the hard and flinty granite. And whence 
did they derive their knowledge of design, their 
delicate taste in decoration, and their great skill 
in execution ? Alas, for our ignorance, we can 
only reply as does the poor, illiterate Indian of 
the present day, Quiensabe? It seems not im- 
probable that this remarkable building subserved 
the double purpose of a temple for worship and 
a mausoleum for the bodies of the chiefs of the 
people who erected it. What their religious 
rites consisted in is almost beyond the reach 
of conjecture, but there is good reason to believe 
that human sacrifice did not form a part of their 
ceremonies as it did in the case of the Teotihua- 
cans and the more modern Aztecs ; and it is 
agreeable to imagine that the offerings to their 
gods consisted of oidy the beautiful flowers of 
the field, as would indeed seem to be indicated 
by the name of the place (Xochicalco), which, 
literally translated, signifies " House of Flowers." 
There can be no doubt as to the object of the 
ditch at the base of the hill and the terraces into 
which the latter was fashioned ; and the knowl- 
edge of defensive fortifications thus exhibited is 
truly astonishing. The excavations in the hill 
probably belong to the same category as the lat- 
ter, forming admirable places for resort for the 
women and children in the case of attack from 
their enemies. It is also reasonable to suppose 
that the level ground on the summit of the hill 
adjacent to the great temple was used as a 
burying-place for the distinguished men of the 



nation. . . . But who were the authors of these 
remarkable works? Whence did they come, 
and whither have they gone ? Is it possible for 
a race of people upon this little globe of ours to 
emerge from barbarism, pass through the slow 
stages of intellectual growth, attain to a high 
grade of civilization, and then disappear, all 
without the faintest knowledge of their existence 
by contemporary nations pursuing the same line 
of progress ? These are questions which are 
continually clamoring for solution. Many and 
various are the answers which have been given, 
but until a Mexican Rosetta stone be discovered 
and a new Champollion arise, our absolute 
knowledge of the history of this wonderful 
people must continue, as it is now, almost a 
complete blank." 

In addition to the literary productions already 
mentioned, Professor Richardson has contrib- 
uted a number of articles, upon various surgical 
affections, to the pages of the New Orleans 
Medical and Surgical Journal, and Medical News 
and Library of Philadelphia, among which may 
be mentioned a Clinical Lecture on " Chronic 
Cystitis and its Treatment by Injections of 
Strong Solutions of Nitrate of Silver," which 
appeared in 187S. He is also the author of the 
life of the distinguished anatomist and natural- 
ist, Professor John D. Godman, in the work 
entitled, "American Medical Biography," edited 
by Professor S. D. Gross, M. D. 

He is a corresponding member of the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia, and 
of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadel- 
phia ; an active member of the Louisiana State 
Medical Society, and of the Orleans Parish 
Medical Society. 

Professor Richardson has for many years been 
a member and elder of the First Presbyterian 
Church of New Orleans. His first wife was a 
daughter of the late Professor Charles W. Short, 
M. D., of Kentucky, Professor of Materia 
Medica in the University of Louisville, Ky. 
His present wife was Miss Ida Slocomb, daugh- 
ter of Mrs. Cora A. Slocomb, of New Orleans. 
He has. no children living. 



416 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




S. H. KENNEDY, Esq. 
Louisiana. 

AMUEL HORTON KENNEDY was 
born, February 13th, 1816, in Middle- 
sex county, Mass., and is the son of 
^&: Artemus Kennedy, farmer, of Norfolk 
county, Mass. The Kennedys are of 
Scotch-Irish descent, and came to this country 
in the latter part of the seventeenth century, 
settling in Massachusetts. Benjamin Kennedy, 
the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, 
took part in the Revolutionary war. 

Samuel H. Kennedy was educated in Milton, 
Mass., and on leaving school, in 1832, became 
a clerk in the house of French, Davenport & 
Co., in the West India trade, Boston, until 
1S35, when he removed to Alton, 111., where he 
established himself in the wholesale grocery 
trade, under the firm of S. H. Kennedy & Co., 
which for seven years pursued a prosperous 
career. In 1843 ne determined to seek a wider 
sphere for his abilities, and moved to New 
Orleans, where he entered into the Western 
produce and commission business, under the 
style of Kennedy & Foster, which continued till 
1852, when the firm was changed to S. H. Ken- 
nedy & Co. Mr. Kennedy displayed so much 
business tact and ability that for more than 
twenty years the firm increased and prospered, 
enjoying a longer career and a larger measure 
of support than any one firm in the same busi- 
ness in the Crescent City. 

At the outbreak of the war, in 1S61, the busi- 
ness was temporarily suspended, as the commu- 
nication between the Southern and Western 
States was entirely cut off, until the opening of 
the navigation of the Mississippi river, in 1863, 
rendered a renewal of business relations pos- 
sible. In those days, before the inauguration 
of the present railroad system, much the larger 
portion of the provision trade between the West- 
ern and Eastern States passed through New 
Orleans, and the great bulk of it was transported 
in flat-boats down the Mississippi river. Vast 
amounts of flour, grain and provisions passed 
throucrh the hands of New Orleans commission 



merchants, and S. H Kennedy & Co. conducted 
for nearly a quarter of a century an enormous 
forwarding business. The development of the 
railway system having diverted a large portion 
of the Western trade into other channels, Mr. 
Kennedy retired from the firm in 1874, leaving 
the business to the junior partners, who still con- 
tinue a prosperous business. On the 1st of July, 
1874, Mr. Kennedy joined the firm of Payne, 
Kennedy & Co., successors to Payne &: Harrison, 
one of the oldest and most extensive houses in 
the cotton commission business in New Orleans, 
of which firm he still continues a member. 

The Louisiana State Bank, of which Mr. 
Kennedy had been a Director before the war, 
was the leading bank in New Orleans, posses- 
sing a capital of $2, 000, 000 and deposits of 
$5,000,000. Early in 1870, in consequence of 
the losses and calamities consequent on the de- 
struction of all descriptions of property during 
the war, the bank was about to be placed in 
liquidation. The stockholders, however, wish- 
ing to resuscitate the institution, and k:\owing 
Mr. Kennedy's peculiar aptitude for the pur- 
pose, urged him to take charge of and reorganize 
its affairs, and place it on a sound footing as a 
financial institution. In February, 1870, he 
became its President, and reorganized it as a 
national bank, under the name of the State 
National Bank. In consequence of his prudent 
and judicious management and the confidence 
inspired by his name, the bank soon proved a 
marked success, and is now one of the leading 
financial institutions in New Orleans, with its 
head office on Camp street and a branch deposi- 
tory on Royal street. This bank is the financial 
agent of the State, having been selected on the 
accession to office of Governor F. T. Nicholls, 
the present Governor of Louisiana. As an in- 
stance of its strong hold on the confidence of 
the commercial public of Louisiana, it may be 
mentioned that the deposits, which, on Mr. 
Kennedy's assuming the management, were only 
$100,000, increased in the course of the two 
following years to $2,000,000. 

Mr. Kennedy has paid several visits to Eu- 
rope, where his family resided for several years. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4i7 



His cultivated taste and ample fortune has en- 
abled him to enrich his elegant private residence, 
in the most delightful part of New Orleans, with 
some choice specimens of the art treasures of 
Europe. This handsome chateau is situated in 
beautiful grounds, with close shaven lawns, bril- 
liant flower-beds and choice trees, including the 
orange, banana, etc. The building, which has 
a mansard roof, is seventy-five feet square, with 
an additional ell of twenty feet, and is almost 
encircled with wide verandas. It contains five 
rooms on the ground floor and ten above. The 
hall, which is fifty feet by twelve feet, contains 
some fine paintings, among which is a copy of 
the famous Beatrice Cenci, some cupids by Guido 
Rene, and an Italian landscape ; there is also a 
magnificent artist's proof of the picture by Paul 
De La Roche, which surrounds the hemicircle 
at the Beaux Arts in Paris, illustrating the mas- 
ters of art in all ages of the world, and marble 
busts of Mr. Kennedy and his wife, by P. Frank 
Conally, who was commissioned by the queen 
to make a bust of the Marquis of Lome. On 
the right is the library and music room, thirty- 
two feet by eighteen feet, with handsome fres- 
coed walls and ceiling, the design of a French 
artist ; the tesselated floor is of oak and walnut, 
and handsome book-cases of walnut and ebony, 
with French plate glass doors, surround the 
room. Here there is a marble bust of Cffisar 
Augustus at the age of fourteen, a superb copy 
from the original in the Vatican at Rome. Be- 
hind the library is the dining-room, a square 
apartment with an arched recess containing a 
handsome buffet and china closets, with glass 
doors to display their treasures, occupying the 
walls. Among the paintings is a fine copy of 
Paul Potter's "Bull," and the interior of St. 
Sophia, by Canaletto. Entering the hall on the 
left hand is the reception-room, with some ele- 
gant glass panels of embroidery, and copies of 
the "Annunciation," after Carlo Dolce, and the 
"Dante and Beatrice" of Ary Schceffer, besides 
an Italian sketch in the pre-Raffaelite style. 
Behind the reception-room is the grand saloon, 
a magnificent apartment forty feet by twenty 
feet, handsomely furnished, but not yet com- 
27 



pleted in its decorations. A broad and hand- 
some staircase, with steps of only four and one- 
third inches rise, making the ascent unusually 
easy, and vases in niches on the walls, leads 
with a grand sweep to the upper part of the 
house. 

Mr. Kennedy is a Director of the Crescent 
Mutual Insurance Company, and of the New 
Orleans Gas Light Company. He has devoted 
his life to commercial and financial pursuits, 
and his sagacity and prudence have been re- 
warded by an ample fortune. Still in the prime 
of life, as shown by his vigorous physique, he 
promises to take an active part in the financial 
affairs of his section for many years to come. 

He was married, in 1845, t0 Eleanor Horton, 
daughter of Enoch Horton, merchant, of New 
Bedford, Mass., and has two children living — 
Frank Kennedy, a member of the firm of Payne, 
Kennedy & Co., and a daughter, the wife of 
Henry W. Payne, a partner in the same firm. 




BISHOP DAGGETT. 

Virginia. 

AVID S. DAGGETT, Bishop of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, was born, 
January 23d, 1810, in Lancaster county, 
Va. , commonly called the Northern 
Neck of Virginia. — Is the son of the 
Rev. John Daggett, his great ancestor being a 
clergyman of the Episcopal Church in England. 
His father was a local minister of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church and a justice of the peace. 

David S. Daggett was educated at Northum- 
berland Academy, in North Carolina, and was 
first intended for the law, but at seventeen years 
of age, having embraced the Christian religion, 
resolved to devote himself to the church. In 
his twentieth year he entered the itinerant min- 
istry, and in 1831 his first station was in Peters- 
burg, Va., whence he removed to Lynchburg, 
1832-33, and in the following year to Rich- 
mond,- where, on the 19th of June, he married 
Miss Martha Ann Gwathmey, daughter of Dr. 



4iS 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



George Gwathmey, physician, of Bedford county, 
near Lynchburg, Va., whose brothers were com- 
mission merchants, of Richmond, and one mem- 
ber of the family was a lieutenant in the United 
States navy. He then returned to Petersburg, 
was at Norfolk in 1S36, and aftenvards again in 
Richmond, from whence he was appointed Chap- 
lain to the University of Virginia, and there 
became a student and received the greater por- 
tion of his classical education at that university. 
Whilst at that institution he for two consecutive 
years attended the four schools of ancient lan- 
guages, moral philosophy, natural philosophy 
and chemistry. From there he again went to 
Richmond, and then to Randolph-Macon Col- 
lege, Mecklenburg county, as Chaplain, and 
whilst at that institution was elected Professor 
of Mental and Moral Philosophy, serving four 
or five years in that capacity and receiving the 
degree of M. A. From Randolph-Macon he 
was returned to Lynchburg, as pastor of the 
church, and whilst there received the degree of 
D. D. from the college. From Lynchburg to 
Petersburg, and then to the Centenary Church, 
Richmond, and afterwards to the Granby Street 
Methodist Church, Norfolk. He was about this 
time appointed, by the General Conference of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, Editor 
of the Quarterly Review, a theological and lite- 
rary periodical issued by that body in Rich- 
mond, and held that position for eight years, in 
addition to his clerical duties. His next charge, 
after Norfolk, with an interval of a year spent in 
Richmond, as Editor of the Review, was in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, 
D. C, where he remained two years. He was 
again returned to Richmond and appointed Pre- 
siding Elder of the Richmond District; was a 
member of the Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church South, held at Louisville, in 1S45, 
where he assisted in organizing the church, and 
was also a member of several successive general 
conferences. After this he was appointed to the 
Broad Street Methodist Episcopal Church for 
two years, during the war. (It may here be re- 
marked that two years is the pastoral term in 
this church.) After this to the Centenary 



Church, and during that term was sent as dele- 
gate to the General Conference, which met in 
New Orleans, in April, 1S66, where he was 
elected and ordained Bishop of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South, which position he has 
occupied for the past twelve years, having pre- 
sided over about sixty annual conferences, which 
have been held in different districts in the South, 
extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, 
but has always had his home in the city of Rich- 
mond, residing in the same house for the past 
twenty years. The Methodist Episcopal Church 
South has now 750,000 communicants, 3,000 
itinerant preachers and about 5,000 local preach- 
ers, and is the second largest Methodist Episco- 
pal Church in numbers in the world, and only 
exceeded by the Methodist Episcopal Church 
of the United States. There are now but seven 
bishops, who are joint superintendents of the 
entire church, and interchange the districts 
amongst themselves annually — their homes, how- 
ever, being permanent. Bishop Daggett has 
published a number of pulpit discourses and 
literary addresses. He started, in connection 
with the Rev. John E. Edwards, the Episcopal 
Methodist, a weekly journal, of which they were 
joint editors and publishers. This journal is 
now published in Baltimore. 



COL. D. M. CARTER. 

North Carolina. 

AVID MILLER CARTER was born, 
January 12th, 1S30, in Hyde county, 
N. C. The Carter family came origi- 
ctfvS? nally from the borders of Maryland and 
& > Virginia, and settled in North Carolina 
at the close of the Revolutionary war. Captain 
Peter Carter, an officer of the Revolution, was a 
member of the family. David Carter, the grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, was for 
twenty years a member of the Legislature of 
North Carolina, and Chairman of the County 
Court of Hyde county. David Carter, his 
father, had large cotton and corn plantations, 
and was a leading man in his district, being 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



419 



largely interested in eanalling and internal im- 
provements. He represented Beaufort and 
Hyde counties in the State Senate in 1846-47, 
and married Sarah Lindsay Spencer, a descend- 
ant of an old family of English extraction, who 
were among the first settlers in that part of the 
State. 

D. M. Carter was prepared for college under 
J. M. Lovejoy, at the Raleigh Academy, an 
educational establishment of considerable note 
at that time. He entered the University of 
North Carolina, at Chapel Hill, in 1S47, and 
graduated from there with distinction in 185 1. 
B. S. Hedrick, of Washington City, Bartholomew 
Fuller, of Fayetteville, and F. E. Schober, mem- 
ber of Congress, were among his classmates. 
He read law under Judge W. H. Battle while at 
the university, and in January, 1852, received 
his county court license. He remained at the 
university six months after graduation, pursuing 
the study of law, and, receiving his Supreme 
Court license in January, 1S53, entered into 
partnership with the Hon. Richard S. Donnell, 
a distinguished lawyer, at Washington, N. C. 

In 1853 Mr. Carter was engag'ed in a trial for 
murder, which' created intense excitement at the 
time, which was heightened by its tragic termi- 
nation — The State z's. The Rev. G. W. Car- 
rowan for the murder of a schoolmaster, who 
was waylaid and shot from behind a hedge, pre- 
sumably for revenge. The body was, after a 
prolonged search, found buried in a swamp, 
beneath some of the carpet-like moss which 
grows luxuriantly in that part of the country. 
Mr. Carter, assisted by Judge Warren, prose- 
cuted, and the prisoner was found guilty. As 
soon as the verdict was given, the prisoner took 
a pistol from his pocket and fired at Judge War- 
ren, hitting him in the breast, and then, despite 
the efforts of the sheriff to prevent him, blew his 
own brains out. Mr. Carter prepared the case, 
but was not in the court-house at the time of the 
shooting of Judge Warren, who afterwards re- 
covered. He was appointed Solicitor for the 
County of Hyde. in 1853, and held that office a 
number of years. In the early part of 1861 he 
was elected a member of a convention to con- 



sider the question of secession, but the call was 
not ratified by the people, and consequently the 
convention never met. Mr. Carter declined 
election to the second convention, which passed 
the ordinance of secession. On the issue of 
President Lincoln's proclamation, he was elected 
Captain of Company E, Fourth North Carolina 
Regiment, and went into active service in north- 
ern Virginia. At the battle of Seven Pines (Fair 
Oaks), where his regiment was almost annihi- 
lated, he was badly, and at the time supposed 
fatally, wounded, and was disabled from duty 
for many months. From that battle he was 
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth 
North Carolina Regiment, and in December, 
1862, was appointed Military Judge at General 
T. J. Jackson's ("Stonewall") First Corps 
head-quarters, and remained in that service until 
the death of General Jacks in. On the reorgani- 
zation of the army he was promoted to Presiding 
Judge at General A. P. Hill's Third Army Corps 
head-quarters. He was elected a member of the 
Legislature of North Carolina, August, 1862, 
and after the battle of Gettysburg was a zealous 
advocate for peace. He took an active part in 
all the discussions on the habeas corpus question, 
and was an earnest advocate for holding to its 
integrity. In January, 1865, as a member of the 
Legislature, he / was appointed, with the Hon. 
John Poole, since Senator, Judge Pirson and 
Colonel E. D. Hall, on a secret mission to 
President Davis, for the purpose of representing 
the views of the people of North Carolina on the 
war question, and ascertaining the true condition 
of the Confederacy, and were in consultation 
with the President on the same day that Alex- 
ander H. Stephens, Judge Campbell and Hon. 
R. .M. T. Hunter were on board the United 
States man-of-war in Hampton Roads, in con- 
sultation with President Lincoln and Mr. 
Seward. They returned to Raleigh and reported 
to the Legislature, who were then on the point 
of adjournment never to meet again. It is 
probable that before long the true inwardness 
of this secret mission will be made public, 
Colonel Carter having been repeatedly urged 
to make the facts known. 



420 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



In 1867 he was elected a member of the State 
Senate for Beaufort and Hyde counties. In 
1866 he resumed the practice of his profession 
at Washington, N. C, and his former partner, 
the Hon. R. S. Donnell, having died, in 1868 
he associated himself with Judge Warren, who 
had been displaced from the Bench at Washing- 
ton by the Reconstruction acts. In 1872 
Colonel Carter was the Democratic candidate 
for Congress for that district, but was defeated 
by Mr. Cobb. When Congress passed the Civil 
Rights bill, in 1873, '' produced a revolution 
and seriously embarrassed the Republican party, 
and caused their defeat in the State. They have 
never secured a representative since except in a 
negro district where the colored voters are in a 
majority of 5,000 or 6,000. In 1874 he removed 
to Raleigh, for the superior educational advan- 
tages it offered to his children, where he con- 
tinues the practice of his profession, principally 
in the First and Second Circuit Courts and in 
the Supreme Court. He has for years been ex- 
tensively engaged in canalling and developing 
the swamp lands in the eastern part of the State. 
He is a Director of the Raleigh National Bank, 
Director of the Home Insurance Company, 
President of the Board of Directors of the Peni- 
tentiary, Trustee and member of the Executive 
Committee of the University of North Carolina, 
and Chairman of the Board of Commissioners 
appointed by the Legislature to build the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion. 

Colonel Carter is an able lawyer, and if he 
would give his entire time to the practice of his 
profession he would acquire great distinction 
therein; but, being a man of large estate, he 
necessarily devotes much of his time to attend- 
ing to and improving it. He is a cogent and 
powerful reasoner, a clear and impressive speaker, 
and has the confidence of all parties as a man 
of the most sterling integrity. His social quali- 
ties are of the first order; beloved by his family, 
kind to the poor, grappling his numerous friends 
to him by his fidelity and ingenuousness of dis- 
position, he is in many respects a model North 
Carolinian. 

He married, in April, 1858, Miss Isabella 




Perry, daughter of David B. Perry, an extensive 
planter of Beaufort county, N. C, who died in 
January, 1S66. In May, 1S6S, he was married a 
second time, to Mrs. Banbury, widow of Captain 
John A. Banbury, planter, of Edenton, N. C. 



COLONEL G. W. RAINS. 

Georgia. 

EORGE WASHINGTON RAINS was 
born in Craven county, N. C, 1817, 
and is the son and eighth child of 
Gabriel M. Rains. The Rains family 
^ is of English descent ; John Rains, 
grandfather of Gabriel M. Rains, having emi- 
grated to America and settled in Essex county, 
Va., early in the eighteenth century. His son, 
also John Rains, was a man of enlarged views 
and philosophic tastes and a great traveller in 
his day. During a visit to London, in 1756, he 
made the acquaintance of Swedenborg, whose 
writings, then creating much attention in Eng- 
land, had naturally great attraction for one of 
his liberal and inquiring mind. Gabriel M. 
Rains, his son, was engaged in the furniture 
trade between New York and the West Indies, 
and while on one of his voyages the vessel 
became disabled and he put in for repairs to 
Newbern, N. C, where he settled and married 
Esther Annesley, the daughter of a retired offi- 
cer of the English army, who had taken up his 
residence on Albemarle Sound. When his 
eldest son, John, grew to manhood he sent him 
into Alabama, then one of the latest additions 
to the Union, and when he had established him- 
self as a planter in that State joined him with 
the remainder of the family. John Rains after- 
wards became a prominent lawyer in Marengo 
county, Ala., was State Senator, 1S37 to 1S39, 
and died in the latter year. 

Gabriel J. Rains, the second son, a graduate 
of West Point, when captain in the Seventh 
United States Infantry, was shot through the 
lung in a battle with the Indians in Florida ; he 
became colonel in the United States army and 
afterwards general in the Confederate service, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



421 



and was wounded at the battle of Seven Pines ; 
he was then made chief of the Conscription 
Bureau and afterwards head of the Torpedo 
Bureau at Richmond, Va. 

Gabriel M. Rains, the father, inherited a 
philosophic and dispassionate temper, and his 
sons had the advantage of being entirely un- 
trammeled in their ideas and free to investigate 
the most abstruse questions, a permission which 
his son George Washington availed himself of 
to the fullest extent, as is shown by his high 
scientific attainments and philosophic taste. 
His early education was received at the New- 
bern Academy, in Craven county, N. C, and at 
an early age he went out to the Indian Territory, 
west of Arkansas, to join his brother, Lieutenant 
Gabriel J. Rains, at that time disbursing agent 
of the United States in that district. His young 
imagination having been fired by reading Coop- 
er's novels, descriptive of life among the Indians, 
this wild region, inhabited only by savages 
roaming over the boundless prairie, was the 
place of all others calculated to deeply interest 
an ardent imagination with the many incidents 
of Indian life and border experience. Here he 
remained for more than a year, and on his re- 
turn to Alabama made a voyage of six hundred 
miles in a "dug-out" down the Arkansas river, 
from Fort Gibson to Little Rock. In 1S3S he 
entered West Point Academy, and having a 
strong taste for military life, went through the 
different grades from corporal to captain of 
cadets with the highest credit, acquiring the 
esteem and confidence of his instructors. The 
pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war 
had boundless fascination for the young cadet, 
and when, on his first promotion to corporal, he 
chanced, through the absence of his superior 
officers, to have command of his guard, the 
pinnacle of glory seemed reached, and no after 
successes seemed comparable to that first taste 
of authority when, with head erect and back- 
bone of steel, he marched at the head of his com- 
mand past the inspecting officer. He was made 
Corporal at the end of his first year, First Ser- 
geant at the expiration of the second, and dur- 
ing the last year was First Captain of cadets, the 



highest rank attainable at West Point. Being 
rated high in every branch he was first in scien- 
tific studies, and, on the summation of the 
whole, ranked third of his class — General New- 
ton, of the United States Corps of Engineers, 
who afterwards conducted the vast explosive 
operations at Hell Gate, taking first honors, 
and Professor Eustis, of Harvard University, 
being awarded the second. Graduating in 
1842, he left West Point for Boston, having 
received his commission July 1st of that year 
as Second Lieutenant of Engineers under Colo- 
nel Thayer, who had been connected with the 
academy previous to the war of 181 2, when it 
was simply a school for engineers, and organized 
it in its essential features as it is at present. 
Colonel Thayer, a man usually of very reserved 
habits with his subordinates, took a liking to 
his young assistant, with whom he conversed 
freely, relating his European experience and 
reminiscences of Paris after the downfall of 
Napoleon ; he was then engaged in the con- 
struction of Fort Warren in Boston harbor, and 
it was there that Lieutenant Rains' practical 
experience in engineering was gained. Having 
such a predilection for the parade and excite- 
ment of military life, the quiet and monotony 
of the engineers, although the highest corps in 
the army, became irksome to him, and, after a 
year's experience under Colonel Thayer, he re- 
solved to apply for an exchange. General Scott, 
who took great interest in the cadets and often 
visited West Point, had seen and become ac- 
quainted with young Rains, and when the cir- 
cumstances were explained to him, used his in- 
fluence to obtain, what had never been heard of 
in the army before, the wished-for exchange 
from a higher to a lower grade — the artillery. 
Joining the Fourth Artillery at Fortress Monroe, 
he reported to General Walbach, then in com- 
mand, a perfect soldier and the beau ideal of 
the bluff old warrior. On 23d April, 1844, he 
was offered the position of Assistant to Mr. 
Bache, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin, then 
in charge of the Coast Survey, but declined the 
offer. He remained with that regiment from 
1S43 t0 I 844; when an assistant professor was 



422 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



required at West Point to take the place of the 
one about to leave the academy, and Lieutenant 
Rains was chosen to fill the position on account 
of his brilliant scientific record while at the 
academy. 

Returning to West Point as one of the assist- 
ant Professors of Chemistry, Geology and 
Mineralogy, in 1844, he remained there till the 
outbreak of the Mexican war, in 1S46, when he 
applied to join his regiment, and embarked with 
it for Point Isabel at the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, then the great depot of the army for 
Mexico. While stationed, in 1S46, at Point 
Isabel, he was made Acting Assistant Quarter- 
master and Acting Commissary of Subsistence ; 
but tired of the inaction of depot-life, he wrote 
to General Scott, representing that he had left a 
splendid position at West Point solely that he 
might be engaged in active service, and begging 
him to use his influence to that end. In the 
meantime General Taylor had detailed him as 
bearer of despatches to the fleet at Vera Cruz, 
although his ostensible mission was that of re- 
turning some prisoners to the Mexican authori- 
ties at that city. Quite unexpectedly General 
Scott and staff arrived at the mouth of the Rio 
Grande, and knowing that Lieutenant Rains was 
the bearer of despatches from General Taylor, 
sent for him, telling him he had received his 
letter and was going to relieve and take him 
into the field, and that he should be the bearer 
of his (Scott's) despatches to the fleet which 
would supersede those of General Taylor. Ac- 
cordingly in January, 1847, ne sailed for Vera 
Cruz and was the first American officer who 
entered that city. Handing over the prisoners 
to General Landers, then in command, by whom 
he was received with much ceremony and dis- 
play, he reported to Commodore Conner, in 
charge of the blockading squadron, and deliv- 
ered his despatches. He remained with the 
fleet about ten days while the Commodore was 
collecting the information sought by General 
Scott, and, being on the blockading ship, took 
part in all the excitement of heading off the 
blockade-runners. When lie returned, General 
Scott verbally appointed him his aide-de-camp, 



but could not take him in the same ship with 
him on account of its crowded condition, and 
he was directed to report at Anton Lazardo, 
whither the army were to rendezvous previous to 
proceeding to Vera Cruz. General Pillow, the 
law-partner of President Polk, and a man of 
high talents, but of no military education, had 
been appointed second in command to General 
Scott, and should anything happen to that 
officer, would, by right, take his place ; it was 
necessary, therefore, that General Pillow should 
have an aide-de-camp well versed in military 
knowledge, and as he had applied for Lieuten- 
ant Rains, General Scott decided that officer 
must accept the appointment. 

The campaign commenced with the siege of 
Vera Cruz, and from that time until the battle 
of Cerro Gordo he acted in that capacity, where, 
while attacking the main front, General Pillow 
was badly wounded by grape-shot, caught in the 
arms of his aide-de-camp, and borne from the 
field. Very soon after the battle, General Pil- 
low was sent back, invalided, to the United 
States from Jalapa, where General Scott took 
Lieutenant Rains as his aide-de-camp, retaining 
him for three months, including his march to 
and occupation of the city of Puebla. On Gen- 
eral Pillow's return, Lieutenant Rains rejoined 
him as aide-de-camp, and participated in all the 
battles of the Valley, receiving his commission 
as First Lieutenant of the Fourth Artillery in 
March, 1847, and as Brevet-Captain for gallant 
conduct at the battles of Contreras and Churu- 
busco on the 20th of August in the same year. 
In the campaign it had become customary for 
General Pillow and Captain Rains, who was his 
confidential adviser, to consult together before 
issuing the orders to the other officers, but on 
the evening previous to the battle of Chapultepec 
this practice had been accidentally omitted. 
In the hurry of the moment orders were given 
by the General which, in after consultation with 
his aide, were found to be injudicious, more 
especially that of dividing Colonel (now Gen- 
eral) Joseph E. Johnston's regiment of Volti- 
geurs. This being rectified in the morning, it 
was still apparent that the General scarcely 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



423 



realized the critical condition of the American 
army, not a third of that of the Mexicans, and 
the desperate straits to which they would be 
reduced if they did not succeed in dislodging 
the garrison from the castle of Chapultepec. 
Captain Rains urged that General Scott should 
be asked to order General Worth's forces, then 
held in reserve, to assist in the assault. Not a 
moment was to be lost. General Scott was im- 
patient and annoyed that there might be some 
delay of the action, and it was only by the 
greatest exertions on the part of Captain Rains 
that the order was given to General Worth in 
time to bring his troops into action. General 
Pillow's men, followed closely by those of Gen- 
eral Worth, poured up the steep ascent, and 
with the wildest enthusiasm stormed the castle, 
the Mexicans seeming utterly paralyzed by the 
impetuosity of the attack. Colonel Joseph E. 
Johnston, in command of the Voltigeurs, was 
first to plant the stars and stripes on the walls, 
and what was left of the garrison of 7,000 men 
■ was captured after a brief but bloody hand-to- 
hand struggle. This was the last important 
point in the Mexican war, as General Santa 
Anna, on the fall of the castle and the gates of 
the city, fled to Guadaloupe, about six miles 
distant. General Pillow was again badly 
wounded in this battle at the side of his aide-de- 
camp, and placed hors-dc-coml>at, and the city 
of Mexico was captured by General Worth's 
forces assisted by General Pillow's command. 
Captain (afterwards General) Robert E. Lee, of 
the Engineers, was General Scott's right-hand 
man as an engineer officer during this campaign, 
from the commencement at Vera Cruz to the 
capture of the city of Mexico. 

General Scott was much elated at the brilliant 
success of the campaign, and rode up to the grand 
plaza and to the Palace with his staff in imposing 
array, to occupy a city of 150,000 inhabitants 
with a scant 6,000 men. The Mexicans could 
scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the 
small band that had so decisively defeated their 
supposed invincible troops, and at once com- 
menced a system of desultory warfare by firing 
from the houses and from every point of vantage 



on the defenceless Americans, who lost heavily 
without the chance of reprisal. General Scott 
at once ordered that every house from which 
firing took place should be given up to pillage, 
and upon this all such houses were sacked, and 
artillery being dragged into the interiors, holes 
sufficient for the passage of men were blown 
through from house to house until they reached 
the Palace of Iturbide, thus enabling the Amer- 
icans to drive the enemy from their hiding 
places without being themselves exposed to their 
galling fire. The Palace, a large four-story 
building, was packed with Mexicans, who 
fancied themselves secure, but it was quickly 
stormed by the Americans, and every Mexican it 
contained killed. After this, some desultory 
firing was still kept up in the back streets, but 
this was soon silenced, and the city was in the 
hands of the conquerors. For gallant conduct 
at the battle of Chapultepec Captain Rains re- 
ceived his commission as Brevet-Major, and 
after seven months' residence in the city of 
Mexico, returned with General Pillow to New 
Orleans, where their reception was enthusiastic 
in the extreme, and attentions and hospitalities 
were poured on the Heroes of Mexico with a 
lavish and unsparing hand. With General Pil- 
low he visited Washington, visiting daily at the 
White House for some time, and becoming ac- 
quainted with President Polk and his family, and 
rejoined the Fourth Artillery, then in command of 
General Twiggs, stationed at New Orleans, where 
he remained for some months. As the summer 
advanced, they were ordered to Pascagoula, to 
avoid the sickly season and, the risk of yellow 
fever. After some weeks of pleasant and gay 
life at this watering-place, they were suddenly 
ordered, at four hours' notice, on board the 
steamship "Alabama," and landed at Tampa Bay, 
Florida, the Indians having commenced hostili- 
ties. Their chief duties consisted in making 
ro?ds, constructing bridges and building forts, the 
Indians keeping concealed in the hammocks 
after their arrival, and never appearing in the 
open field, so that no engagement took place. 
Major Rains, having been in the engineer corps, 
was fully occupied in these operations, having 



4^4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



two companies under his immediate command. 
He remained for about eighteen months in the 
lower part of Florida and in the neighborhood 
of the Everglades, when a treaty was made be- 
tween General Twiggs and Bowlegs, king of 
Seminole, by which the hostile Indians were to 
be given up to the United States authorities, 
and the remainder to be sent West. A feeling 
of utter despondency now began to creep over 
these sojourners in those dreary glades, and 
fancying themselves forgotten by the rest of the 
world, they began to give up all hope of relief. 
While there a company arrived, commanded by 
Captain T. J. (afterwards General Stonewall) 
Jackson, who had been a Lieutenant in the Mex- 
ican war, and a cadet during three years of Major 
Rains' term at West Point. In 1850 Colonel 
Gardner, then commanding the Fourth Artillery, 
was ordered to New York harbor, and Major 
Rains, who had for years desired to be stationed 
there of all other places, could scarcely believe 
that fortune had so befriended him until he 
found himself on the broad Atlantic, and well 
beyond the depressing influence of those cheer- 
less Everglades. Arrived at New York, the 
regiment was stationed at Fort Hamilton in the 
Narrows, and there being a large hotel in the 
neighborhood of the fort, the officers were once 
more thrown into all the gayeties of the fashion- 
able world ; it was here that Major Rains made 
the acquaintance of the family of his future wife. 
In 185 1 he was offered the military command 
of the expedition sent out to define the Mexican 
boundary-line from New Mexico westward to 
the Pacific coast,, but declined, as he had 
scarcely recovered from his long sojourn in the 
lower part of Florida. In the winter of 185 1 
the regiment was ordered to Fort Columbus, 
New York, where they remained until 1S52, 
when they were transferred to Fort Mackinaw, 
at the head of Lake Huron, where the almost 
arctic climate with its sleighing and skating was 
a totally opposite experience to that of tropical 
Florida. Here he had considerable leisure, and 
devoted himself chiefly to the study of physiology 
and medicine. After being stationed there two 
years, they were ordered to Boston harbor for 



one month and finally returned to Fort Colum- 
bus. Major Rains was then appointed com- 
mandant of recruits at Governor's island, having 
about 1,000 men under his command; holding 
that position during 1855 and the greater 
portion of 1S56. On the 23d of April of that 
year he married Frances Josephine Ramsdell, 
daughter of Homer Ramsdell, then President of 
the Erie Railroad, and granddaughter of Thomas 
Powell, a noted inhabitant of Newburgh, and 
one of the pioneers of steamboat navigation. 

Shortly afterwards his regiment was ordered 
to the Sioux country, Dakota Territory, and as 
it was impossible to take his wife with him, and 
there seemed every prospect of their being 
separated for an indefinite period, his wife's 
friends persuaded him to retire, and, though 
very reluctant to leave the army, he resigned his 
commission in October, 1S56. After his resig- 
nation he became President and part owner of 
the Washington Iron Works and Highland Iron 
Works, at Newburgh, on the Hudson, in which 
machinery of all kinds was extensively manufac- 
tured for the West Indies, South America and the 
United States. While directing the operations 
of these works, he invented and patented a num- 
ber of improvements in the machinery peculiarly 
adapted to their requirements and which largely 
contributed to their success. Here, surrounded 
by a large circle of friends, with every wish grati- 
fied and all that could make life happy, directly 
in sight of his Alma Mater — West Point — he 
passed five years of tranquil enjoyment, in which 
the remainder of his fitful career promised to be 
spent. But it was not to be. The mutterings of 
the coming tempest were becoming louder and 
louder, and at length, in 1S61, it became neces- 
sary to decide on which side he should cast his 
lot. Like every chivalrous and patriotic son of 
the South he decided that the claims of his 
native State were paramount to all others, and 
when the first gun was fired, he left for Rich- 
mond and at once reported for duty to Presi- 
dent Davis, whom he had known previously, 
when Secretary of War to President Pierce. 
He naturally expected to be placed on active 
service in the field where promotion was certain ; 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



425 



but Mr. Davis, who knew his scientific attain- 
ments, was urgently in need of an officer to take 
charge of the ammunition department, and per- 
suaded him to' accept that position. He was 
placed at once on special duty in the Ordnance 
Department, and commissioned, July 10th, 1861, 
as Major of Corps of Artillery, on ordnance duty. 
Gunpowder was most urgently required; there 
were no powder-mills in the Confederacy, except 
an old one near Nashville, Tenn., and a small 
affair at Walhalla, S. C, neither of which were 
making powder, and all the stock on hand was 
that captured at the Norfolk Navy Yard, and 
some smaller quantities taken in some of the 
forts and arsenals, amounting in all to a few 
hundred thousand pounds, a portion of which 
was damaged. Carte blanche was given him as 
to choice of location and nature of works, and 
after a rapid survey of the country he decided 
upon Augusta as best adapted by its central 
position, and consequent safety, and also by its 
water-power and facilities for transportation. 
Not an hour was lost in commencing operations, 
and in the face of almost insurmountable obsta- 
cles, with but primitive appliances, and many 
of those improvised for the occasion, and every- 
thing to be commenced tie novo, in seven short 
months was erected sufficiently for operation, 
the largest and most complete powder manufac- 
tory ever seen on this continent. No description 
of the size of the requisite buildings or mode of 
arrangement could be procured, hence the plans 
of the buildings and their dimensions, arrange- 
ment and location, as well as the machinery, 
were determined by Major Rains without assist- 
ance; the requisite facilities were wanting for 
the manufacture of almost every single article of 
the munitions of war, and expedients had there- 
fore to be resorted to continually. Nothing, 
probably, contributed more to the success of the 
Confederate arms during that desperate struggle 
than the indefatigable energy and inexhaustible 
fertility of resources displayed by Major Rains 
in overcoming the difficulties which he had 
almost every day to encounter and circumvent 
in the production of the vast quantities of am- 
munition and arms of all kinds issued from the 



government works at Augusta. The range of 
buildings stretched along the Augusta canal for 
two miles, and all the most recent improvements 
of the best English factories were reproduced 
and improved upon. The main building was 
200 feet long, with wings at back, apparently 
making it 200 feet square, and was used for 
the manipulation and purification of saltpetre, 
sulphur and charcoal. In this building the 
machinery for pulverizing the ingredients was 
the invention of Major Rains, and proved most 
advantageous, as by its means he was able to 
make the gunpowder perfectly homogeneous 
and of great purity. A second large building, 
200 feet long, formed twelve powder-mills, with 
a steam-engine of 120 horse-power in the centre, 
and an archway beneath containing the shafting 
for turning the great iron rollers in the powder- 
mills, and for communication with the boiler- 
house in the first building, 200 feet distant. 
Each mill consisted of two large iron rollers, 
weighing 10,000 pounds each, for grinding the 
materials. Between the two buildings was a 
handsome laboratory for the manufacture of 
nitric acid and fulminates. These three large 
buildings occupied a space of 500 feet along the 
canal, with a chimney 155 feet high, in the erec- 
tion of which 250,000 bricks were used. At 
every 1,000 feet were other brick buildings, each 
one having its own specific part in the manufac- 
ture of gunpowder. The raw material entering 
on the canal at the lower end of the works, went 
through successive processes in each building 
until it was delivered as finished gunpowder at 
the magazine at the upper extremity of the 
works. Among other improvements Major Rains 
devised arrangements for steaming the gun- 
powder, thus much increasing its strength and 
value. Patents for his various inventions were 
taken out under the Confederate government, 
and he has repeatedly been applied to, since the 
war, to explain his improvements and to under- 
take the superintendence of other mills. This 
was the only powder factory in the Confederate 
States, and the largest single manufactory in the 
world. From it all the armies east of the Missis- 
sippi were supplied. The product was 10,000 



426 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



pounds of gunpowder per day, working only by 
daylight, and never on Sundays: a much higher 
rate might have been reached had it been neces- 
sary. There were 70,000 pounds of powder on 
hand when the war closed, and the majority of it 
was sent to Fortress Monroe, where it was used 
in target practice and pronounced superior to all 
others. The chimney at the works was designed 
by Major Rains as an obelisk, of which the main 
building formed the base, and was intended to 
form the first permanent structure belonging to 
the Confederate government; after the war the 
main portions were purchased by the city, when 
the rest of the buildings were pulled down, but 
the chimney was reserved and devoted as a monu- 
ment to the Confederate dead. In addition to 
the powder works, Major Rains had charge of 
the arsenal, where small arms, ammunition and 
field artillery were manufactured ; and a foundry 
in the city for casting cannon, from which over 
one hundred twelve -pound Napoleon bronze 
guns and some iron rifle guns were turned out ; 
and carriage and harness shops, so that batteries 
were supplied complete with every requirement 
needed except horses and men. Extensive ma- 
chine-shops, in connection with the foundries, 
were largely used in the erection of the machinery 
for the powder-mills ; and a prodigious number 
of shells of all descriptions, hand-grenades, tor- 
pedoes and almost every material of war were 
turned out from this foundry. 

Major Rains, although so fully occupied with 
the superintendence of the powder-mills, devoted 
all the time he could spare to the development 
of the nitre caves in Tennessee, Alabama, Geor- 
gia, Arkansas and other Southern States. He 
found a lamentable ignorance of the proper 
mode of manufacturing the salt from the earth 
of the caves, and hence published a pamphlet, 
couched in very plain language, describing the 
process in detail, which was extensively circu- 
lated. He also sent out from the works in- 
structed powder makers to Texas and Arkansas. 
who, under the direction of the military author- 
ities there, assisted in putting up powder-mills 
in both States and so kept the trans-Mississippi 
armies supplied. The Confederate Secretaries 



of the Army and Navy had purchased a large 
foundry at Selma, Ala , capable of casting cannon 
of large calibre, and half of the products were to 
be available for each department. Selma was 
chosen as the location because of its proximity 
to the finest coal and iron mines in the United 
States. The contract for the works was made 
with civilians, who were totally unacquainted 
with the requirements of such a factory, and 
several hundred thousand dollars had been ex- 
pended with unsatisfactory results, when, in the 
spring of 1S63, Lieutenant-Colonel Rains was 
called upon to assume the charge and bring the 
factory into working order. Much against his 
own wishes, his time being more than fully 
occupied by his duties at Augusta, he went to 
Selma, and dividing his time between there and 
Augusta, week by week, .in a short time thor- 
oughly reorganized the foundry, and when it 
was sufficiently completed for operation handed 
the direction over to Captain Ap Catesby Jones, 
of the Confederate navy, who had been second 
in command on the " Merrimac " when she 
made her celebrated attack on the Federal 
frigates in Hampton Roads. 

On December 19th, 1863, a Board of Artil- 
lery Officers, consisting of Colonel Rains, Major 
William L. Bassinger and Major Barnwell, as- 
sembled at Augusta for the purpose of determin- 
ing the proper charge for heavy guns and the 
highest allowable angle of elevation, and the 
exhaustive report drawn up by the Colonel was 
published. ■ » 

He visited Charleston and Savannah to par- 
ticipate in the operations consequent on the 
expected attack of the enemy's fleet, and was 
with General Lawton at Port Royal when it was 
bombarded by the Federal squadron. In 1S64 
he received his commission as Colonel, and was 
made commanding officer of the military district 
between Atlanta and Charleston. 

When General Sherman was on his march 
from Atlanta to the sea, it was supposed that he 
would pass through Augusta on his way, and in 
anticipation of that all the cotton in the city 
was stacked up in the centre of Broad street, 
making a continuous pile of cotton twenty or 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



427 



thirty feet high, extending a long distance be- 
tween market- house and market-house. General 
D. H. Hill, then in command,- the intimate 
friend and classmate of Colonel Rains, had de- 
termined on firing this vast pile of cotton should 
the Federal troops show signs of marching on 
Augusta ; and Colonel Rains, foreseeing the 
probable destruction of the city, should that 
design be carried out, used his utmost endeavors 
to dissuade the general from the project, at least 
until the troops should closely approach the city. 
The powder-mills, steam-engine and other im- 
portant machinery were removed from the gov- 
ernment works on trucks, and taken down the 
canal to the railroad depot, whence they were 
sent to Columbia, S. C, for safety. Fortunately 
for Augusta, the Federal army, on its march 
southward, passed by the city some twenty miles 
distant, and when all apprehension was dis- 
pelled the machinery was returned to the 
powder factory. 

On the surrender of General Johnston and the 
proclamation of peace, Colonel Rains took down 
the iast flag of the "Lost Cause," which floated 
over the Arsenal, and when General Upton, of 
the United States army, arrived in Augusta to 
take charge, handed over to him the whole of 
the Confederate buildings and material of war. 
Under the terms of peace agreed to between the 
two generals, the most amicable feeling existed, 
and on the departure of General Upton he in- 
formed Colonel Rains that he would send a 
company to take possession, whose officer should 
report to the Colonel. But, the original con- 
ditions of peace having been altered in the 
meantime, Colonel Rains vacated the Arsenal, 
and on the arrival of the Federal lieutenant with 
his company, he told him to assume the charge. 
Almost the whole of the employes had left the 
government works by this time, and but a hand- 
ful remained, who were quite unable to prevent 
the mob from breaking into the buildings in the 
city and carrying off a large portion of the 
material. After this Colonel Rains remained 
about a year on the Sandhills, a suburb of Au- 
gusta, a part of the time as the guest of ex- 
Governor Jenkins and Mr. Baker. 



The question of the overflow of the Savannah 
river, causing great devastation in Augusta at 
every considerable freshet, and its remedy, had 
long engaged Colonel Rains' attention, and a 
number of influential citizens, believing that if 
its practicability was demonstrated no delay 
would occur in the construction of the neces- 
sary works, asked him to make his views public 
through the press, and in response, July 23d, 
1866, he developed an elaborate scheme, which, 
though dormant for many years, may probably 
yet be carried into effect when the finances of 
the city will admit of it. 

In 1867 Professor Jones resigned his position 
as Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the 
Medical Department of the University of Geor- 
gia, and left for New York, and on the 1st of 
March of that year the faculty elected Colonel 
Rains to the vacant chair, also conferring on 
him the degree of M. D. When the trustees 
of the Richmond County Academy deeded to 
the medical college the land on which it stands, 
an agreement was made by which the professor 
of chemistry in the college should become sci- 
entific lecturer to a portion of the higher pupils 
at" the academy; accordingly Professor Rains, 
since his occupation of the chair of Chemistry, 
has also been scientific instructor at the acad- 
emy, of which the trustees made him Regent. 
He was offered the position of Inspector of Fer- 
tilizers, but declined; after Dr. Hankinson was 
appointed to that office, he requested Professor 
Rains to act as analyzer, which he did for sev- 
eral years. In June, 1869, he was appointed by 
the Richmond County Agricultural Society to 
bring before the City Council the great im- 
portance of the water-power of Augusta to the ' 
future prosperity of the city, and in an able 
document, read before that body, he first advo- 
cated the enlargement of the canal, since so 
successfully carried out, as the best means of at- 
tracting capital and manufactures. Professor 
Rains is a member of the Board of Health of 
Augusta, of which Dr. Louis D. Ford is Presi- 
dent, and Dr. L. A. Dugas a member. He has 
contributed largely to scientific literature, his 
contributions being scattered through the nu- 



428 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



merous scientific and literary periodicals ; when 
Assistant Professor at West Point, in 1845, ne 
published "Practical Observations on the Gen- 
eration of Statical Electricity by the Electrical 
Machine," and while at Newburgh a short popu- 
lar treatise on the steam-engine, besides several 
pamphlets, during the war, on the nitre caves, 
experiments with projectiles, etc., etc. Profes- 
sor Rains possesses remarkable originality of 
mind, with great perceptive and inventive pow- 
ers; an omnivorous reader, with a marvellous 
faculty for assimilating the essence of the most 
advanced theories of modern thought, he has 
kept well abreast of the times in not one only, 
but every department of scientific knowledge, 
and, in his bold philosophic deductions from 
the most recent scientific discoveries, is far in 
advance of his time. In early life he was enthu- 
siastically devoted to the profession of arms, his 
high courage, chivalric bearing and strict en- 
forcement of discipline gaining him the respect 
and admiration of his fellow-officers, while his 
men were devoted to one who was never weary 
of attending to their interests and well being. 
His inventive faculties are of the highest order: 
while Assistant Professor at West Point he pro- 
jected some valuable improvements in electrical 
machines, and while superintending the iron 
works at Newburgh, obtained numerous patents 
for improvements in the steam-engine ; but it 
was while in charge of the Confederate Powder- 
Mills, at Augusta, Ga., that he showed the won- 
derful resources of a fertile brain. There, cut off 
from all outside intercourse, without plans or 
experience to guide him, he designed and 
erected the largest powder-mills in the world, 
and by improvements in machinery and processes 
of manufacture produced in unlimited quantities 
the finest gunpowder made on this continent. 
He displayed the wonderful fertility of his re- 
sources in the manufacture of almost every 
munition of war, and to him belongs the distin- 
guished honor of having done more, in his un- 
obtrusive way, for the success of the Confederate 
cause than any one except the great military 
commanders. He is a born instructor of youth, 
and, having a clear perception of what he 




teaches, has a magic way of imparting knowl- 
edge to others that renders the most dry subject 
one of absorbing interest. With a mind of the 
highest culture, polished manners and fascinat- 
ing address, he is a great favorite in the social 
circle, while his high sense of honor, sound 
practical sense, generous nature and sterling 
worth have endeared him to a host of warm 
personal friends. 



CAPTAIN J. H. CHAMBERLAYNE. 

Virginia. 

|| OHN HAMPDEN CHAMBERLAYNE 
4| was born in Richmond, Va., June 2d, 
L'J 1838. He was educated at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, where he graduated 
M. A. in 1858. He was engaged in 
tuition for a year, and was admitted to the bar 
at Richmond in 1859. On the 17th of April, 
1861, he volunteered as a private soldier in the 
Twenty-first Regiment Virginia Infantry, and 
was afterwards transferred to the artillery, serv- 
ing one year as Adjutant of battalion, and then 
promoted to Captain, commanding a light field 
battery. He was engaged in all the battles of 
the army of Northern Virginia except Malvern 
Hill and the Mine Run campaign. Just before 
the battle of Gettysburg he was taken prisoner, 
and exchanged May, 1864. Re-entering the 
army as soon as he reached home, he achieved 
an enviable reputation. 

He commenced his career as a journalist in 
1S68, editing successively the Petersburg Index, 
from 1S68 to 1873, tne Norfolk Virginian, 1S73 
to 1S76, and in' March, 1876, established The 
State, in Richmond, Va. In 1873 he married 
Mary, daughter of the Rev. C. J. Gibson, D. D., 
of Petersburg. 

The name of Chamberlayne appears on the 
roll of Battle Abbey, as does that of Daubeney, 
or Dabney, the name of Captain Chamberlayne's 
mother. The subject of this sketch, although a 
non-commissioned staff officer, achieved early in 
the war such a reputation for gallantry that he 
was chosen by General A. P. Hill, with whom 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



429 



he was then serving, to receive the surrender 
of the Federal officer in command of Harper's 
Ferry at the time of its capture, in 1862, with 
14,000 prisoners. But his chief distinction 
was won at the battle of the Crater, in front 
of Petersburg, in 1864, where, hurrying from a 
sick-bed to the scene of conflict, he took com- 
mand of a field battery which had been demor- 
alized by the flight of its officers, sternly 
ordered the men to their guns, and, turning 
them upon the enemy, contributed not a little 
to the great triumph of that eventful day. He 
was promoted to the Captaincy of that battery 
on the spot, and remained in command of it 
until the surrender at Appomattox. Refusing 
to surrender either with Lee or with Johnston, 
whom he had joined in North Carolina, he 
made his way to Mississippi, where he remained 
until he could safely enter civil life. His taste 
and natural aptitude well fitted him for war, 
and slow as his promotion had been, there is 
but little doubt that if the struggle had con- 
tinued a few months longer he would have 
risen high in command, to a brigade or division 
of infantry, the arm of the service which he 
preferred. 

His success in journalism was immediate and 
brilliant. Alike in Petersburg and in Norfolk, 
his reputation for point, vigor, and compression 
in thought, and for a certain finish and eleva- 
tion in style was acknowledged on all sides. 
Single-handed in Norfolk, he began what seemed 
a wild and hopeless contest against Piatt, the 
Republican member in Congress, and, to the 
amazement more of his friends than of his foes, 
overthrew him. During this contest he took 
the stump, and by his speeches as well as his 
pen contributed to the defeat of his antagonist 
and the election of Hon. John Good, who still 
holds the seat. While in Norfolk he was invited 
to deliver an address at the first celebration of 
Randolph-Macon College, at Ashland, and his 
theme, "Public Spirit," was handled with such 
boldness and force as to mark an epoch in 
Southern political thought. For the first time 
in our history the mirror was held up frankly to 
the ex-slave-holders by one of themselves, the 



defects of their system shown without gloss or 
apology, and the fatal consequences pointed out 
as if the orator had stood in Exeter or Faneuil 
Hall instead of a platform in a Southern college. 
The address was loudly applauded by the audi- 
ence, widely copied in all parts of the country 
and in Europe, and everywhere complimented. 

A year or two later, Captain Chamberlayne 
delivered, in Richmond, an oration on the 
"Life and Character of General R. E. Lee." 
He had but four days in which to prepare the 
address, and yet by universal consent it was pro- 
nounced equal to any if not superior to all the 
many eulogies, orations, and discourses pre- 
viously delivered upon the great commander. 
It is indeed a master-piece of analysis and of 
style, which gives the author a place that no one 
will hereafter question. In the summer of 1S77 
he delivered, in Fredericksburg, before the Edu- 
cational Society of Virginia, an address on 
"Specialized Study," a theme which appealed 
to a very limited circle, but which the writer 
treated with the lucid precision and strength 
that characterized his previous efforts and marked 
him as a man of unusual breadth of knowledge 
and of varied accomplishments. 

Chamberlayne's success in his last venture has 
been, if possible, greater than any former tri- 
umph. When he purchased the Evening Jour- 
nals the spring of 1876, its circulation did not 
much exceed 1,000, and its influence was in 
effect nil. In less than eighteen months its cir- 
culation had risen above 5,000, exceeding that 
of any other paper in the city ; its influence and 
its standing are commensurate with its circula- 
tion. Captain Chamberlayne is eminently a 
man of the people in the sense in which his 
great namesake, John Hampden, was; but his 
faith in Republican institutions and his popular 
manners have never yet involved him in petty 
politics, from which he holds aloof, believing 
journalism to be his proper field and one in 
which his varied powers may be displayed to 
the best advantage as well for the public as for 
himself. It is but simple truth to say that no 
man of his age in Virginia has a future more 
promising than his, and it will be a most extra- 



43° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




ordinary anomaly in the politics of his State if 
sooner or later he does not receive a call to some 
important public trust, a calfrwhich, as a good 
citizen, he will be compelled to heed. But for 
the present he is well content with his newspaper. 



DR. G. W. BAGBY. 

Virginia. 

GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY, journalist 
and lecturer, was born in Buckingham 
county, Va., August 13th, 1828. He 
is the son of a Lynchburg merchant, 
^ and was fitted for college at the Edge- 
hill School, Princeton, N. J., then under the 
care of Dr. John S. Hart, afterwards Professor 
of Rhetoric and of the English Language and 
Literature in the College of New Jersey. In 
1843 he entered Delaware College, Newark, 
Del., but left it at the end of his sophomore 
year and began the study of medicine, taking 
his degree at the University of Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia, though he has never practised ; 
the bent of his mind, as he early recognized, 
being strongly towards literature in general and 
journalism in particular. The medical title, 
however, has grown to be a familiar part of his 
name. Pie became, in 1S53, editor of the 
Lynchburg Daily Express, and was for several 
years Washington correspondent of the New 
Orleans Crescent, the Charleston Mercury, and 
the Richmond Dispatch. Subsequently he con- 
tributed several papers to Harper ' s Magazine, 
including one entitled " My Wife, and My 
Theory About Wives," and to the Atlantic 
Monthly an article on " Washington City." In 
1S60 he succeeded John R. Thompson as editor 
of the Southern Literary Messenger, which he 
continued to edit until near the close of the 
civil war, being at the same time associate- 
editor of the Richmond Whig, as well as corre- 
spondent of the Charleston Mercury, the Mobile 
Register, the Memphis Appeal, and the Colum- 
bus (Ga.) Sun, besides contributing to the Rich- 
mond Examiner and the Sou/hern Illustrated 
News. It is not surprising that the work which 



[ he performed at this time, so extensive, various, 
and exacting, amounted to overwork, and seri- 
ously affected his eyes, the only wonder being 
j that it did not disorder his whole frame, pros- 
| trating his health entirely. After all, however, 
his loss proved the gain of his countrymen, if 
not his own, for this excessive literary labor, 
apart from the extraordinary services directly 
proceeding from it, occasioned him, in 1865, to 
relinquish the tripod for the platform., on which 
he has exerted his fine powers with the best 
effect and achieved his brightest fame. As a 
lecturer, he is distinguished for delicacy of 
humor, force of pathos, and graphic power. 
Perhaps his most successful lectures are, "Bacon 
and Greens, or the Native Virginian," "Women- 
folks," "An Apology for Fools," " Humor and 
Nonsense," and "The Old Virginia Gentle- 
man," the last of which was first delivered at 
Richmond in the winter of 1876-77, and is pro- 
nounced by competent judges his "very best 
production." It is certainly a marvel of just 
delineation, impregnated with exquisite humor 
and tinged with delicious pathos. His lecture 
on "The Virginia Negro, Past and Present," 
was prepared for the North, where he delivered 
it; but, the general subject being in that section 
considerably less popular in the lecture-hall than 
on the hustings, he failed sufficiently to interest 
his audience, and consequently soon laid the 
lecture aside. The truth is, the negro, although 
he once lent himself easily to the purposes of 
literary art, and no doubt will thus lend himself 
again, is just at present the subject of quite too 
little illusion, standing out as a naked fact, un- 
covered by so much as a shred of romance or 
a fig-leaf of picturesqueness. A better time un- 
doubtedly is coming for this lecture, and when 
it comes may the gifted lecturer be here to im- 
prove it. Meanwhile, he may well content him- 
self with the success which has crowned his other 
works, among the best known and most admired 
of which may be mentioned, in addition to those 
already specified, " The Letters of Billy Ivvins 
to Mozis Addums," " What I Did with my Fifty 
Millions," and " Meekins' Twinses," the latter 
published in Richmond in 1S77. For some 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



43i 



time past, undaunted by the reception in the 
North of his lecture on the "Virginia Negro," 
he has been collecting matter serious and comic 
adapted to illustrate the negro character, with a 
view to publication either in this country or in 
England, and, wherever and whenever he pub- 
lishes it, a curious as well as instructive and en- 
tertaining book will be added to the literature 
of the time. Since 1870 he has been State 
Librarian and Assistant Secretary of State of 
Virginia. Dr. Bagby has never put his name to 
any of his works, hoping against hope that a 
time of leisure might come when he could de- 
vote himself seriously to a connected story of 
Virginia life as it was before the war of seces- 
sion. He regards everything he has done, ex- 
cept perhaps "The Old Virginia Gentleman," 
as trifles. He is a man of courteous manners, 
and as genial and humorous in his daily walk 
and conversation as in his writings. None 
know him but to love him. 



DR. W. F. WESTMORELAND. 

Georgia. 

IILLIS FOREMAN WESTMORELAND 
was born in Fayette county, Ga., Jan- 
uary 1st, 1828, and is the son of Rob- 
ert Westmoreland, planter, of that 
county. The Westmorelands are of 
English descent, three brothers of that name 
having come to this country shortly after the 
close of the Revolutionary war, and settled in 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina, a 
county in each of these States being named 
after them. Dr. Westmoreland is descended 
from the North Carolina branch of the family ; 
his grandfather was a civil engineer, and was 
engaged in running the dividing line between 
Virginia and North Carolina westward to the 
Ohio river, through what was then a territory. 
For this service he was to receive a large grant 
of land in the new territory, the deed for which 
was duly executed but afterwards destroyed with 
other important documents in the burning of 
the State House of North Carolina, at Raleigh. 




This large estate would now be extremely val- 
uable, but his descendants, in the absence of 
the necessary legal documents, have been una- 
ble to establish their claim to it. Willis F. 
Westmoreland received his early education at 
the high school at Griffin, Ga., where he re- 
mained until 1846, when, being of an adventur- 
ous disposition, he left, and spent a year in 
travelling through Texas. He then returned to 
Georgia and commenced the study of medicine 
under his elder brother, Dr. John G. Westmore- 
land, and Dr. Caldwell, at Zebulon, Ga. From 
there he went to Augusta, where he entered the 
Georgia Medical College, attending the course 
of lectures in 1848-49. In the latter year he 
entered Jefferson College, Philadelphia, grad- 
uating thence in 1850. Among his classmates 
at Jefferson were Dr. William H. Pancoast, now 
Professor of Anatomy at that college, and Dr. 
S. Weir Mitchell, the distinguished specialist in 
nervous diseases, of Philadelphia. He com- 
menced the practice of his profession in Fayette 
county, Ga., and in July, 1851, removed to 
Atlanta, where he remained until 1852, when 
he accompanied Dr. Paul F. Eve, then Profes- 
sor of Surgery in the Medical Department of the 
Nashville University, to Nashville, Tenn., and 
studied surgery under him for eight months. 
In the winter of 1852 he went to Paris and re- 
mained there two years, attending the lectures 
of Velpeau, Nelaton, Rioux, Ricord and others. 
In 1854, while still in Paris, he was selected to 
fill the chair of Surgery in the Atlanta Medical 
College, and in the winter of that year returned 
to Atlanta, where he practised surgery, and in 
the winter of 1855-56 delivered a course of lec- 
tures on Surgery in that institution. In the 
summer of 1855, in connection with Dr. Samuel 
Logan, he established the Atlanta Medical and 
Surgical Journal, and has been more or less in- 
timately connected with that periodical as pro- 
prietor and editor up to 1877, when he retired 
from the editorial chair. In September, 1856, 
he returned to Europe for further study, devot- 
ing his attention almost exclusively to surgery. 
While in Paris he was, as a private student, 
directly under the teaching of Dumas, oculist; 



43 2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Robin, microscopist ; and Verneille, surgical 
pathologist, besides attending the courses of 
Nelaton, Velpeau and Malgaine, from whom he 
received certificates. Among those who were 
studying in Paris at the same time may be men- 
tioned Dr. Choppin, Professor of Surgery, New 
Orleans ; Dr. John A. Murphy, Professor of the 
Practice of Medicine in Miami Medical College, 
Cincinnati, Ohio; and Dr. Miles, of the Balti- 
more Medical College. On his return from 
Europe in the summer of 1S57 he entered 
actively into the practice of surgery in Atlanta, 
where he remained until the outbreak of the 
civil war, in 1861. In 1858 and 1859 he con- 
ducted a series of experiments upon the dog 
with reference to the ligation of arteries and 
the closing of wounds of the intestines with sil- 
ver wire; by the successful closing of wounds in 
the abdominal aorta, and the removal of sec- 
tions of the intestines, he demonstrated that this 
method was the best for treating all wounds of 
that description. These experiments were re- 
ported to the Georgia Medical Association, and 
a notice of them appears in the Transactions of 
the Association for 1859. When the war broke 
out he was appointed, by Governor Brown, Sur- 
geon of the First Regiment of Georgia Volun- 
teers, commanded by Colonel Ramsay ; this 
regiment was the first to leave the State, and 
was ordered to Pensacola, Fla., where they re- 
mained until June 1st, when they were ordered 
to Richmond. On his arrival in Virginia, Dr. 
Westmoreland was detached from his regiment 
and ordered to the Tenth Georgia, then on the 
peninsula, where he organized and took charge 
of the William and Mary Hospital. 

While in Atlanta, before the war, he had been 
Surgeon of a cavalry company, and when he 
joined the First Regiment it was with the 
understanding that if his old company should be 
ordered to the front he would join them. Ac- 
cordingly, when they were organized as a part 
of Cobb's Legion and arrived in Virginia, he 
resigned his position as Surgeon in the Tenth 
and the charge of the hospital, and entered the 
ranks of his company. Soon afterwards, how- 
ever, at the remonstrance of his friends, who 



urged that he could do better service for his 
country as a surgeon than as a private soldier, 
he accepted a temporary position at the front 
with General Beauregard's army. About this 
time he was taken sick with the fever and re- 
turned to Atlanta on furlough. While still sick 
there, Fort Donelson and Nashville fell, and 
he was ordered by the Medical Director of the 
Department of the West to organize hospitals 
for the receipt of the sick and wounded of 
Johnston's army after the fall of the latter city. 
He remained on duty in Atlanta until shortly 
before the battle of Shiloh, when he was ordered 
to the front, arriving the day after that battle 
was fought. From thence he was ordered to 
Columbus, Miss., to organize hospitals for the 
sick and wounded of that army. He remained 
there until the organization of two hospitals was 
complete and the sick were cared for, and when, 
in July, 1862, the army was preparing to start 
on the campaign into Kentucky under General 
Bragg, he was ordered to prepare hospital 
accommodation for the sick at Atlanta as the 
base of that army, then at Chattanooga. While 
in charge of the Medical College Hospital, at 
Atlanta, he extended its capacity from time to 
time until it reached four hundred and fifty beds. 
At every approaching battle he was ordered to 
the front with the hospital corps to establish 
hospital accommodation on the battle-field, and 
though repeatedly urged to do so, always de- 
clined to accept an official position that would 
detach him from the practical duties of his pro- 
fession. When the fall of Atlanta became in- 
evitable he was selected to remain with such of 
the sick as could not be moved, and was left in 
charge of four hundred and twenty-five desper- 
ately wounded men who were not transportable. 
The apprehension of shortly falling into the 
hands of the enemy had a most depressing effect 
on the spirits of the men, they became demoral- 
ized, lost all hope, and many of them even the 
desire to live. On the first night thirty died, 
and on the following twenty-five more. Fear- 
ing that, unless something was done to raise the 
spirits of the wounded men and give them hopes 
of escaping capture, the greater part might die, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



433 



Dr. Westmoreland waited on the Medical Direc- 
tor of Hospitals, Dr. S. H. Stout, and asked 
permission to remove them beyond the reach of 
the Federal forces. He proposed to transport 
them to Milner, Ga., about sixty miles from At- 
lanta; and on gaining the required permission 
returned and put new life into his unfortunate 
patients, by telling them that he would day by 
day remove such as were capable of standing the 
transport until all were beyond the danger of 
being made prisoners. The moral effect was 
instantaneous, and many a poor fellow who had 
determined to die rather than fall into the hands 
of the Federals, took heart again and pro- 
nounced himself able to stand the journey. In 
the course of two weeks the men were by degrees 
all removed and placed under canvas in the 
woods near Milner, where there was ample water 
supply and no fear of surprise from Sherman's 
army ; about ninety-five men were lost in all, 
and only some half a dozen who were utterly 
beyond hope were left behind in consequence 
of the impossibility of transporting them. Had 
not D r - Westmoreland taken this humane and 
considerate course there is little question but 
that more than half the wounded would have 
died in despair. He remained at Milner until 
after the burning of Atlanta and Sherman had 
commenced his march to the sea. The hospital 
being thus left unprotected he was ordered to 
retreat to Albany, two hundred miles further 
south, where he established his hospital in tents 
for about six weeks, when he was ordered, with 
the entire hospital and equipage, to Columbus, 
Miss., a journey of about one thousand miles. 
The railroads were torn up by raiders, and the 
transportation of all kinds difficult and tedious 
in the extreme. Three weeks were occupied in 
the journey to Columbus via Mobile, the last 
two hundred and fifty miles, from Mobile to 
Columbus, taking one week to perform. He 
was compelled to leave the hospital at Columbus, 
but went himself on to Corinth, from whence he 
was ordered with the assistant surgeons to Frank- 
lin, Tenn., but finding it impossible to pass 
owing to the snow and rains he made his way 
back to Corinth. He then returned to the 
28 



head-quarters of the Medical Department at 
Macon, from whence he was ordered to Atlanta 
to gather up the wounded and establish hospitals 
of some kind. He arrived at Atlanta on 25th 
December, 1864, with his hospital corps, and 
opened a hospital in the Medical College, the 
only public building, used as a hospital, left in 
the city, and the same building that he had 
occupied before he left ; remaining there until 
he was arrested in May, 1S65. When the sur- 
render became known, the populace and the dis- 
banded soldiers considered themselves entitled 
to raid all public property, and everything was 
confusion, anarchy, and mob-law. This was the 
only hospital in Atlanta that contained any sick, 
and when in due course the mob attempted to 
plunder it, Dr. Westmoreland, by his adroit 
appeal to the sympathies of the returned soldiers 
on behalf of their sick comrades, saved it from 
pillage and preserved it intact to the last. 

The war being over, and the whole of his 
property destroyed, Dr. Westmoreland had to 
commence life anew. He returned to the prac- 
tice of his profession in Atlanta with an energy 
never before exercised ; bare existence was all 
that could be hoped for, and to obtain even that 
taxed the utmost powers of the ruined people of 
the South. Atlanta was bankrupt and in ruins, 
and was inundated by an influx of negroes to 
the number of eight or nine thousand, while the 
white population scarcely exceeded one thou- 
sand. They formed a very dangerous element 
in society; with no means of support and no 
desire to work, their only means of subsistence 
was the rations issued by the Quartermaster's 
Department, and as a consequence robbery and 
outrage were of daily occurrence, and even life 
was not secure. Many murders were committed 
with impunity, and there being no law but mili- 
tary law the punishment of criminals, especially 
of the favored race, was all but impossible. 
Small pox broke out among the colored people 
huddled together in tents and hovels, scarcely 
protected from the weather, and about a thou- 
sand died from that and other diseases, and in 
many cases their bodies lay unburied and ex- 
posed to the public view for days together. The 



434 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



white people of both sexes were arrested on the 
most trivial complaints from the negroes, to 
whom the military authorities allowed every 
license, and no man's life or liberty was secure. 
As numbers of people from the North began to 
settle in the city, matters improved somewhat, 
and early in 1S66 a municipal government and 
civil laws were established, but not without many 
severe collisions with the dangerous negro ele- 
ment. In the summer of 1S66 the Atlanta 
Medical College was reopened, and Dr. West- 
moreland resumed his lectures as Professor of 
Surgery. For two or three years it was a life 
and death struggle with him, as with others, to 
support his family, but he was devoted to his 
profession, and gradually but surely, by con- 
scientious and patient labor, acquired the most 
extensive practice as a surgeon in Georgia. In 
1S68 he went to New York for the first time 
since the war, and has continued to visit that 
city, and other important centres of the medical 
profession, once or twice a year ever since, for 
the purpose of keeping himself au courant with 
the advance in medical science. 

During the war the surgeons in the army 
were, to a great extent, thrown on their own 
resources to obtain their necessary supplies, and 
were compelled to resort to many substitutes. 
Finding that in numerous cases the ligation of 
arteries by wire and otherwise terminated in 
sloughing and renewed hemorrhage, Dr. West- 
moreland introduced the use of the muriated 
tincture of iron, and demonstrated that second- 
ary hemorrhage of the largest arteries — the 
femoral for example — could be arrested by satur- 
ating them with the tincture. After he began 
to use it during the war, he never lost but one 
case by the application of the tincture, and in 
that case it was impossible to reach the artery 
with the iron. He has since conducted a series 
of experiments on the dog, in which he clearly 
proved that hemorrhage from even the largest 
arteries could be arrested by this agent, and 
reported his results in a paper to the Georgia 
Medical Association in 1871. He has devoted 
much attention to genito-urinary disease, more 
particularly urinary calculus and stricture. On 



the former, of which he has performed sixty-one 
operations with but five deaths, he" published in 
1874 a paper, read before the Georgia Medical 
Association, in which he gives a synopsis of 
thirty-seven cases, the great majority of which 
were treated by lateral lithotomy, of which three 
only were fatal, and two of those above sixty 
years of age, undertaken at urgent request and 
against his own judgment. In 1874 he published 
a paper, read before the Atlanta Academy of 
Medicine, on "Immobility or Closure of the 
Jaw," with report of cases, in which he demon- 
strates the possibility of a complete cure in a 
class of cases regarded by many as incurable, 
and presents to the profession a screw-gag 
which he has constructed to meet the indication 
more perfectly than any now in use. 

Dr. Westmoreland has been a member of the 
Georgia Medical Association for twenty-five 
years, and was its President in 1S73; he has 
been a member of the American Medical Asso- 
ciation for the past fifteen years, and was elected 
first Vice-Fresident in 1878; and has been Pro- 
fessor of Surgery in the Atlanta Medical College 
since its organization in 1855. He also teaches 
Clinical Surgery at the college, and the large 
number of poor people, especially colored, in 
Atlanta makes it a very extensive clinic. As a 
surgeon, Dr. Westmoreland is without an equal 
in his native State, while in the neighboring 
States of Alabama, Tennessee, Florida and 
South Carolina his name is a household word. 
His remarkable judgment and skill in surgery, 
his masterly diagnosis, and the boldness and 
originality of his operations manifest a natural 
talent that is exceptional. He has added largely 
to the science of surgery, and is unusually thor- 
ough in his investigation of disease. He is 
noted for undertaking cases that none others 
will attempt, and his marvellous success in cases 
of fibro-cystic tumor, etc., etc., stamp him as a 
genius of the highest order. As a medical phi- 
losopher, he may be classed among the very fore- 
most, and he has done more to develop new 
ideas than any man in his section, while his in- 
ventive powers have found scope in the produc- 
tion of a new urethrotome and other surgical 




f?f kt 




'7/i ( r~*, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



435 




appliances. Enthusiastic in his devotion to his 
art, he has taken no active part in public affairs, 
although there are few men better posted on the 
topics of the day, and shrewder judges of the 
current of public opinion. Fearless and inde- 
pendent, he has many opponents, but he is be- 
loved by his patients and students, and his noble 
character, warm heart, and sympathetic nature, 
have endeared him to hosts of warm friends. 
He married, October, 1857, Maria J. Jourdan, 
daughter of Hon. AVarren Jourdan, formerly 
State Senator of Gainesville, Ga. 



HON. R. C. L. MONCURE. 

Virginia. 

jICHARD C. L. MONCURE was born, 
in the year 1805, in the county of Staf- 
ford, Virginia, where he has perma- 
nently resided. His ancestry were 
Scotch and English people, who mi- 
grated in early Colonial times to that part of the 
Old Dominion, and they, with their descend- 
ants, have won an honorable reputation for all 
civil and domestic virtues. His great-grand- 
father was a clergyman of the English Church, 
who had charge for many years of the parish of 
Over Wharton. The scholastic training of 
Judge Moncure was not a highly favored one, 
being confined to the instruction afforded by the 
local schools and his private reading ; but he 
improved these limited opportunities, and by 
force of his steady intellect and will, and faith- 
ful study, obtained admission to the bar in the 
year 1825. 

His clear and vigorous mind, aided by con- 
stant study and conspicuous energy in all en- 
gagements, soon won him a place in the front 
rank of his profession ; and he practised with 
marked success in the courts of Fredericksburg 
and the neighboring counties, and the Supreme 
Court of Appeals at the city of Richmond, the 
capital of the State. He never sought political 
office or employment, and only consented to 
assume such public trusts when the people of his 
county pressed him into their service in the State 



Legislature, and at a time when the revision and 
enactment of a code of laws by the State was 
undertaken by the Legislature. In this impor- 
tant public work, Judge Moncure rendered very 
valuable services to the State. His reputation 
for large and accurate legal learning, careful and 
thorough investigation, impartial temper, and 
incorruptible integrity, had become so estab- 
lished in the year 1851 that he was then elevated 
by the Legislature to a seat on the bench of the 
Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. During 
all the mutations and sharp vicissitudes of po- 
litical affairs in Virginia which have occurred 
since 1851, Judge Moncure has been continued 
in this exalted and responsible office by succes- 
sive elections at the hands of the Legislature 
and of the people, save only during the hiatus 
in the civil government when the courts of the 
State were constituted and controlled by military 
authority. 

By the common testimony of the law and the 
people, his long judicial career has been marked 
by every attribute of the learned, laborious, 
able, and just judge. And though the frosts of 
seventy-two winters have placed the hoary 
crown upon his noble brow, he is still rendering 
valuable service to the State as the Presiding 
Judge of the court, honorable and beloved 
throughout the limits of the Commonwealth. 



<2&) 



DR. J. M. JOHNSON. 
Georgia. 



f OHN MILTON JOHNSON was born in 
Livingston county, Ky., January 15th, 
1812. The Johnsons are of English 
descent, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great 
English lexicographer, having been a 
near relative of the family. James Johnson 
came to Maryland, in 1634, with Lord Balti- 
more, as manager of the extensive estate of Dr. 
Madden, and his descendants removed first to 
Virginia, and subsequently to Kentucky, while 
members of the family may be found in North 
and South Carolina. James Johnson, the grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, was an officer 



43 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of the old Virginia line in the Revolutionary 
war, and his wife's sister married Colonel Polk, 
the author of the Mecklenburg declaration of 
independence. James Johnson, son of the pre- 
ceding, and father of Dr. John M. Johnson, was 
a soldier in the war of 1812, and subsequently, 
having practised medicine for many years, be- 
came a Presbyterian minister. J. Neely John- 
son, a nephew of James Johnson, was Governor 
of California in 1855-56. John M. Johnson, 
having received his early education in the schools 
of his native county, commenced the study of 
medicine at fourteen years of age under Dr. 
William Miller, of Madisonville, Ky., a physi- 
cian of great skill and reputation, and, in 182S, 
entered Cumberland College, Ky., where he 
remained twelve months, and then resumed his 
medical studies until his nineteenth year. In 
1832 he began the practice of his profession in 
Davis county, Ky., where he remained until 
1844. In 1837 he was elected to the Kentucky 
Legislature, serving two years. At the death 
of his father in 1837 he removed to Caldwell 
county, Ky., to take charge of the paternal 
estate, undertaking at the same time the educa- 
tion of his four brothers, of whom James L. 
Johnson was afterwards a member of Congress 
and subsequently Judge of the Supreme Court 
of Kentucky ; Richard W. Johnson is now a 
Major-General in the United States army and 
stationed at St. Paul ; and William S. Johnson 
is a physician of Caldwell county, Ky. His 
father had by his will liberated more than forty 
of his slaves on condition of their emigrating to 
Liberia, but left no provision for paying their 
passage over. The negroes were unable to com- 
ply with the condition, but Dr. Johnson, much 
to his honor, acted up to the spirit of the will, 
and, dispensing with the stipulated conditions, 
with the consent of the other legatees, gave all 
the negroes their liberty. He still continued 
the active practice of his profession, and, in 
1853, removed to Paducah, McCracken county, 
Ky. In 1859 he was elected to the State Senate 
of Kentucky, serving two years. When war 
became imminent he took the Southern side of 
the question, and, having been on intimate 



terms with President Lincoln, was compelled to 
vacate his seat in the Senate and fly to the Con- 
federate borders to escape a warrant for his 
arrest which had been issued by the President 
as a friendly measure to prevent his casting in 
his lot on the side of secession. Before leaving 
he was offered a bribe of £125, 000 if he would 
in his place in the Senate announce his adhe- 
sion to President Lincoln's policy. Arrived at 
Bowling Green, where General A. Sidney John- 
ston was in command, he telegraphed to Rich- 
mond, and the Confederate Secretary of War at 
once sent him his commission as Surgeon in the 
Confederate army. General Albert Sidney John- 
ston ordered him to duty at Nashville, where 
he was placed in charge of the first hospital 
there, and at the fall of Fort Donelson he was. 
made Post Surgeon at Atlanta, where he had 
5,000 wounded soldiers from the battle-fields 
of Virginia under his care. His wife dying in 
August, 1862, service at this post became dis- 
tasteful, and he resigned and went into the field 
as Medical Inspector of General Buckner's divi- 
sion, then on the march to Kentucky under 
General Bragg, and made the campaign and 
retreat through Cumberland Gap to Knoxvillc, 
Tenn. He was then appointed Chief Surgeon 
of General P. R. Cleburne's division, serving 
nine months in that capacity and participating 
in the battles of Perryville, Dug Gap, Liberty 
Gap, and Murfreesboro, fought on the last day 
of December, 1862. After wintering in Ten- 
nessee they, in the following July, retreated to 
Chattanooga, and from there went into Missis- 
sippi, General Hardee having relieved General 
Joseph E. Johnston of the command. Again 
joining the Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 
they took part in the battle of Missionary Ridge 
and then retreated on Dalton, near which was 
fought the battles of Rock Face and Ringgold 
Gap, the latter a most decisive action. A series 
of skirmishes followed as they fell back on At- 
lanta, where Dr. Johnson resigned his commis- 
sion. The reasons for this step, in justice to 
Dr. Johnson, may be here briefly stated. Dr. 
David W. Yandell was at that time Medical 
Director to General J. E. Johnston in Missis- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



437 



sippi, whither he had been ordered to relieve 
Vicksburg, then besieged by General Grant, 
while Dr. Johnson was Medical Director to 
General Hardee. Some severe reflections hav- 
ing been, cast by President Davis' administra- 
tion on General J. E. Johnston for failing to 
raise the ■ siege of Vicksburg and thus relieve 
General Pemberton, Dr. Yandell wrote a volu- 
minous and exhaustive letter to Dr. Johnson 
entirely exculpating the General and casting the 
whole blame on the administration at Richmond. 
This letter, written with all the charm of Dr. 
Yandell's well-known literary skill, was shown 
in confidence to Mr. Robert McKee, then editor 
of a Chattanooga newspaper, who, during Dr. 
Johnson's temporary absence from his marquee, 
extracted the salient points of the letter and after- 
wards published them in his journal. Such an 
able and complete defence naturally much grati- 
fied General Johnston's most intimate friends, 
and several copies were sent to the Confederate 
capital and in due course found their way into 
the hands of President Davis. Inquiries having 
been instituted, the channel through which the 
information had been obtained was soon discov- 
ered, and the result was that Drs. Yandell and 
Johnson were ordered to report themselves to 
General Kirby Smith's command, then in Texas. 
Dr. Johnson, being unwilling to accept this prac- 
tical banishment, preferred to resign his com- 
mission. He was subsequently offered the posi- 
tion of Medical Director in General Polk's 
command, and also a position on the Peace 
Commission sent by President Davis to Canada, 
but refused both. After the close of the war he 
settled down in Atlanta and commenced afresh 
the practice of his profession, to which, and the 
study of Medical Philosophy, he has since ex- 
clusively devoted his attention. He was Pro- 
fessor of Philosophy and Pathological Anatomy 
in the Atlanta Medical College from 1868 to 
1872, and is a member of the Georgia Medical 
Association, and of the Atlanta Academy of 
Medicine, of which he was President in 1875. 
Dr. Johnson was the first to prepare and u::e 
what is popularly known as Saccharated Calo- 
mel, upon the application of which he wrote an 



extended treatise. The process consists in the 
comminution of the calomel by triturating it 
with milk-sugar and hard loaf-sugar, equal parts, 
for thirty minutes or longer, or until the mole- 
cules of the calomel are completely separated. 
Upon entering the stomach these molecules are 
absorbed at once with the sugar, and enter the 
circulation with ease, as they are smaller than 
the blood corpuscles. Thus by the presence of 
the calomel in the liver and other excreting 
organs, half a grain is made to produce the effect 
that ten or twenty grains were employed to ac- 
complish before this discovery. Dr. Johnson 
was also the first to employ the Muriated Tinc- 
ture of Iron for the radical cure of Fluor Albus 
and uterine ulcerations, and is the only physi- 
cian in the world who has cured Membranous 
Dysmenorrhea, as may be seen by examining 
the literature on that subject. He denounces 
Gynaecology as taught and practised at this day 
as a fraud and villany, and is of opinion that 
it should be punishable by law. He has intro- 
duced cotton and wool pessaries with great suc- 
cess, and discards all others, believing the time 
to be at hand when none other will be used. 
Among his contributions to medical literature 
may be mentioned treatises "On Dysmenor- 
rhcea," "On the Use of Muriated Tincture of 
Iron in Fluor Albus and Uterine Ulceration," 
and "On Wool and Cotton Pessaries." 

Dr. Johnson is a gentleman of great purity 
of character, kind-hearted to a fault, and a good 
man in the best sense of the term. Extensively 
read and well cultured, his intellectual powers 
are above the ordinary range. As a physician, 
he ranks with the foremost in Atlanta, is remark- 
able for his devoted attention to and sympathy 
with his patients, gaining their confidence by 
the deep interest he takes in their welfare — as 
much the friend as the medical adviser. Of a 
strong and robust constitution, and at an age 
when many men consider themselves entitled to 
take their ease, he conducts unaided a large and 
laborious practice with a vigor that many a man 
twenty years his junior might envy. His friends 
say that he has but one weakness : that of pay- 
ing more attention to the cure of his patients 



43§ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



than to the adequate remuneration for his ardu- 
ous services, and this reluctance to claim his 
legitimate reward has sometimes resulted in 
great injustice to his family. Having built a 
house, which exhausted all his immediate re- 
sources, he became involved in some trouble as 
to the payment for the land upon which it was 
erected; the time was one of great financial de- 
pression, and he applied to all his friends for 
assistance in vain. Discouraged and hopeless, 
he was endeavoring, with Christian resignation, 
to reconcile himself to the loss by enforced sale 
of the whole of his property, when a noble offer 
of help came from a totally unexpected quarter. 
Governor Joseph E. Brown, an old and valued 
friend of the doctor's, seeing a notice of the in- 
tended sale, at once, with a generous and deli- 
cate liberality peculiarly his own, advanced, 
unsolicited, the large sum, $5,500, necessary to 
pay the claim and preserve the property to Dr. 
Johnson's family; such an instance of unosten- 
tatious generosity to one to whom he was in no 
sense under any obligation, deserves the grate- 
ful remembrance which Dr. Johnson will ever 
retain of Governor Brown's disinterested action. 
Dr. Johnson has been twice married : first, in 
1830, to Elizabeth Earl, daughter of John Earl, 
of South Carolina, who died in 1862; second, 
in May, 1864, to Mrs. Mary W. Erwin, sister 
of Hon. Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in President Buchanan's administration, and 
of General T. R. R. Cobb, who fell in the battle 
of Fredericksburg. He has six children. His 
son, John M. Johnson, who is an ardent student 
of natural history, and possesses great talent as a 
sculptor, is engaged in the State Survey at Sac- 
ramento, Cal. His eldest daughter is the wife of 
Dr. J. S. Byers, late of Atlanta, a nephew of Gen- 
eral Albert Sidney Johnston ; the second is mar- 
ried to General George B. Cosby, formerly of the 
United States army, and now Assistant State 
Engineer at Sacramento, Cal. ; Mrs. Cosby has a 
great natural talent for sculpture; she is entirely 
self-taught, and some of her busts display real 
genius; a third daughter is the wife of Colonel 
Edward R. Weir, Jr., formerly of the volunteer 
army. 



W. H. H. TUCKER, Esq. 

North Carolina. 

ILLIAM HENRY HAYWOOD 
TUCKER was born in Raleigh, N. C, 
June 17th, 1822. His grandparents 
were natives of Virginia, from which 
they removed, about the year 1790, to 
Wake county, N. C. He is a son of Ruffin 
Tucker, who began life as a clerk in the store 
of Southey Bond, at Raleigh, in 1815, with a 
salary of twenty-five dollars for the first year, 
and three years later went into business with his 
brother, William C. Tucker, the partnership 
continuing until 1828, when it was dissolved, 
and each prosecuted a successful business on his 
own account. His mother, Lucinda Marshall 
Tucker, was a daughter of Joel Sledge, a wealthy 
farmer of Franklin county, N. C. He was pre- 
pared for college at the Raleigh Academy, a 
well-known educational establishment of those 
days, under the direction of L. B. Johnson, 
and in 1838 entered Randolph-Macon College, 
Virginia, where he only studied for a portion 
of the course. 

Returning to Raleigh he took a position in 
his father's establishment, in May, 1839, serving 
first as clerk, and afterwards as salesman, until 
1846, when he was taken into partnership, and 
thereafter conducted with his fatl\er a prosper- 
ous business till the death of the latter, in April, 
1851. He then took into partnership with him 
his two younger brothers, J. J. W. and Rufus S. 
Tucker, under the firm-name of W. PI. PL & R. 
S. Tucker, and prosecuted his business with 
steadily increasing prosperity until the blight 
of the civil war fell upon the South. In the 
dark days of that conflict his house gradually 
contracted its business, and finally suspended it 
altogether for a period of two years, during 
which the members, still associated, engaged irr 
banking and brokerage, starting also, in 1S62, a 
grist-mill, which they ran for some three years. 
At the close of the war they resumed the dry- 
goods business, which they have since pursued 
with signal success to the present time. 

In 1866, though the year was one of great 








tJw^fc 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



439 



depression and even despondency throughout 
the business circles of the South, his establish- 
ment set an example of enterprise that has con- 
tributed in no small measure to the commer- 
cial importance of the capital of the Old North 
State, erecting in that year the building known 
as Tucker Hall, the largest and most important 
mercantile structure in Raleigh, and the only 
building suitable for dramatic representations. 
This edifice, occupying the site upon which his 
father and uncle set up business together half a 
century before, is of brick, three stories high, 
with an iron front, forty-three feet in width, on 
Fayetteville street, and running back one hun- 
dred and twenty feet. The first story, or store 
floor, appropriated to the business of the pro- 
prietors, is one hundred and seventeen feet by 
forty, with a height of fifteen feet, and is fur- 
nished in a style that would not discredit those 
cities whose merchants are princes and do busi- 
ness in palaces. The two upper stories, forming 
the hall proper, contain a theatre capable of 
seating twelve hundred people, and having a 
gallery, stage, saloon and dressing-rooms. It is 
used not only for theatrical representations, but 
for concerts, lectures, balls, and social assem- 
blies of other descriptions. On the occasion of 
its opening, in 1867, the Hon. David L. Swain, 
LL. D., formerly Governor of the State, de- 
livered an interesting address, entitled, "Early 
Times in Raleigh," full of incidents connected 
with the history of the city from ante-revolu- 
tionary times down to the present. The erec- 
tion of this building by his firm, as already 
intimated, has had a stimulating effect on the 
other leading members of the business commu- 
nity, many of whom, in a spirit of generous 
emulation, have since erected handsome edifices. 
He has been all his life strictly a business man, 
finding but little time to attend to any business 
but his own. 

For some fifteen years previous to the civil 
war he was a Colonel of militia; but, with this 
exception, he has held no office, civil or mili- 
tary. His whole energies have been employed 
in building up the establishment of which he is 
the head, now the most extensive of its kind in 



the State. In the course of this employment he 
has made no less than one hundred and eleven 
trips to the city of New York. He has also 
made two voyages to Europe, the first in 1873, 
when he visited Great Britain and the Conti- 
nent, combining business with pleasure; and 
the next in 1876, when he escorted his three 
nieces, the daughters of his brother and part- 
ner, R. S. Tucker, on an extended continental 
tour. 

He is a man of high character, honest and 
upright, kind and liberal to the poor, with fine 
social qualities, and by thoroughly acting up to 
the golden maxim of "minding his own busi- 
ness," has won the respect and esteem of his 
fellow-citizens, and by his enterprise and liber- 
ality has shown that he has the welfare of his 
native city and her inhabitants at heart. 



R. S. TUCKER, Esq. 

North Carolina. 

|UFUS SYLVESTER TUCKER was 
J born in Raleigh, April 5th, 1829. He 
is the third son of Ruffin Tucker, and 
brother of the subject of the foregoing 
sketch. Like his brother, he was pre- 
pared for college at the Raleigh Academy, then 
under J. M. Lovejoy, a gentleman of Northern 
birth, and, in his day, one of the most noted 
teachers in the State. In 1844 he entered the 
University of North Carolina, from which he 
graduated in 1848, having among his fellow- 
collegians Johnson Pettigrew, afterwards a gen- 
eral in the Confederate army, and M. W. Ran- 
som, now United States Senator from North 
Carolina, and among his class-mates Victor C. 
Barringer, at present a Judge under the Khedive 
of Egypt, and Seaton Gales, since editor of the 
Raleigh Register. On leaving the university, he 
entered the mercantile establishment of his 
father and brother at Raleigh, serving as a clerk 
until 1851, when his father died, and he became 
the partner of his two brothers. At the beginning 
of the civil war, in 1861, he was appointed by 




44° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Governor Ellis Quartermaster and Commissary at ' hundred and ten, and the methods of instruc- 
Raleigh, but in the latter part of that year he tion, as well as the appointments, are the most 
resigned the appointment, and raised an inde- recent and improved. He is a member of the 
pendent company of cavalry, of which he was Protestant Episcopal Church, and a vestryman 



elected Captain. His company joined the 
Third Regiment of North Carolina cavalry, 
composed of ten independent companies, and 
went into active service in the eastern part of 
the State. He remained with his regiment, 
principally in the neighborhood of Newbern and 
Washington, until the fall of 1S62, when he was 
promoted to a majorate, and assigned to the staff 
of Adjutant-General Fowle, and subsequently to 
that of Adjutant-General Gatling. In the winter 
of 1S62-63 he was elected Chief Clerk of the 
House of Commons of North Carolina, the duties 
of which office he performed until the close of 
1863. For the past twenty years he has taken a 
leading part in the affairs of his native city, to 
whose interests he is zealously devoted, and to 
the advancement of which he has brought the 
skill and energy of the business man united with 
the liberality and enlightenment of the scholar. 
He was a Director of the North Carolina Railroad 
Company for many years, including the period of 
the war, and is now a member of the Committee 
of Inspection of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad 
Company. He was also for many years a Director 
of the Raleigh National Bank, resigning the 
position only a few years ago, and is at present 
a Director of the National Bank of Newbern. 
He is and has been for eighteen years a Direc- 
tor of the North Carolina Institution for the 
Deaf and Dumb and the Blind, and during the 
last three years has been the President of the 
Board. This admirable institution has now been 
in existence for thirty-two years. It provides 
for the education, free of charge, of the deaf and 
dumb and the blind youth of the State, of both 
sexes and both races, equal provision being made 
for the white and the colored children, although 
in two separate departments, located in differ- 
ent parts of the city, under the management, 
however, of the same Board of Trustees, the 
annual cost of the two establishments amount- 
ing to about forty thousand dollars. The-average 
attendance for the past few years has been two 



of Christ Church, Raleigh, which he represented 
in the diocesan convention at Charlotte in 1877, 
and of which the Rev. Dr. Marshall is the rec- 
tor. ' He is an active and energetic member of 
the firm in which he is a partner, which may 
fairly be classed among the institutions of the 
city. No small part of the net proceeds of this 
large business has been invested from time- to 
time in real estate in the city in which it is 
carried on, until the firm is to-day the largest 
holder of real estate in Raleigh. They have also 
taken a prominent lead in building operations 
in the city, of which the elegant villa residence 
of Major Tucker on Hillsboro street and the 
Tucker Hall on Fayetteville street are note- 
worthy examples. In private he is courteous, 
hospitable, and liberal, with fine social qualities, 
and withal a keen love for the sports of the 
field, in which he is remarkably skilled, having 
the reputation of being one of the best shots at 
a partridge in the State. He married, in 1S56, 
Miss Florence E. Perkins, daughter of Church- 
hill Perkins, of Pitt county, a man of promi- 
nence in the eastern portion of the State, and at 
one time the most extensive manufacturer of 
turpentine in the United States. 



^fe 



HON. R. M. SIMS. 

South Carolina. 

OBERT M. SIMS was born December 
28th, 1836, in Fairfield county, S. C. 
The Sims family came originally from 
Virginia, his great-grandfather being 
the first to settle in South Carolina ; 
his father, Dr. James M. Sims, was a well- 
known physician and landed proprietor of 
Union county, S. C, and took an active part in 
the nullification question. His mother, Ann 
Lee Johnson, was a daughter of a merchant in 
Lancaster county, and her mother was a Lee 
from Camden, S. C. His early education was 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



441 



received at the Franklin Academy, in Lancaster 
county, under the direction of A. L. Crawford, 
a well-known preceptor of that day, until 1S53, 
when he entered the State Military Academy, 
at Columbia, known as the "Arsenal," where 
he remained one year preparatory to entering 
the more advanced department of the same 
institution, the "Citadel," at Charleston, from 
whence he graduated in the latter part of 1856. 
Among his cotemporaries at this famous military 
college were General E. M. Law, now of Ala- 
bama ; Major James L. Coker, afterwards a dis- 
tinguished officer in the Confederate army ; 
Captain Hugh S. Thompson, now Superintend- 
ent of Education for South Carolina, and John 
F. Lanneau, President of the Female College 
at Tuscaloosa, Ala. After leaving college he 
purchased some land from his father's estate, 
and commenced planting, which he pursued 
with considerable success until the passage 
of the ordinance of secession, when he took 
part in raising troops from his native county, 
and joined his company, the Lancaster Grays, 
Second Regiment, under General (then Colonel) 
J. B. Kershaw, April 8th, 1861, then on its way 
to Fort Sumter. In the early part of July, 1861, 
they were ordered to Virginia, and during the 
following year he served as Orderly Sergeant ; at 
the expiration of that time, the company failing 
to re-enlist, he joined Company B, and was 
elected First Lieutenant. He participated in 
the seven days' fight around Richmond, the 
second battle of Manassas, Ox Hill, Bainsboro 
Gap and Sharpsburg (Antietam), at the latter 
of which he was wounded. The regiment was 
badly cut up at Fraser's Farm, and was well- 
nigh decimated at the second battle of Manassas, 
and he was the only officer with his company 
during the whole of that Maryland campaign. 
In the fall of 1862 he was promoted to Captain 
and Adjutant-General on the staff of Brigadier- 
General M. Jenkins, and served at Fredericks- 
burg. In 1863 they were ordered into Tennes- 
see with Longstreet's corps, and joined Gen- 
eral Bragg, participating in the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, and during the night fight in Wills 
Valley he was painfully but not dangerously 



wounded. From thence they proceeded to 
Knoxville and through the East Tennes- 
see Valley to join General Lee, whom they 
reinforced just previous to the battle of the 
Wilderness in May, 1S64. Brigadier-General 
Jenkins was in command in East Virginia and 
North Carolina during the early summer of 1863, 
and Colonel Sims remained on his staff until the 
battle of the Wilderness, where he was killed, in 
May, 1864; he remained with the brigade, after- 
wards under General Bratton, until the summer 
of 1864, when he left to join General Gary's 
brigade of cavalry as Adjutant and Inspector- 
General during its defence of Richmond. He 
was then transferred to General Longstreet's 
staff as Adjutant and Inspector-General of the 
First Corps, and served in that capacity until the 
surrender at Appomattox, and had the distin- 
guished honor of carrying the last flag of truce 
from General Lee to General Grant, the last 
episode in the eventful struggle. He never 
sought promotion, each step being the reward 
of distinguished merit, and he was entitled to 
the rank of Major or Lieutenant-Colonel, ac- 
cording to the interpretation of the two Staff 
Bills, and his commission was actually made out 
at Richmond, but owing to the confusion exist- 
ing at the last, was never forwarded to him. 
After the close of the war he was elected a 
delegate to the Perry Convention of 1865, com- 
posed of the best elements of the intelligence, 
wisdom and conservatism of the State, which 
framed a new Constitution, providing, among 
other things, for a District Court for the trial 
of petty larcenies, a tribunal hitherto unknown 
in South Carolina, for which a code of laws 
was prepared ; it was proposed and privately 
discussed by Governor Perry and the best men 
of the State, that the negroes should have a 
qualified suffrage, but the action taken by the 
Congress of the United States put a stop to fur- 
ther action. 

Early in 1S68 D. H. Chamberlain, Corbin 
and others held a convention, at which the 
present Constitution of the State was framed. 
During this period Colonel Sims devoted his 
attention to planting, and in 1868 was elected 



442 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



State Senator on the Democratic ticket for Lan- 
castor county, and held that position for two 
years; and in 1873 he was elected Intendant of 
Rock Hill. Previous to the campaign of 1876, 
the plundering of the State by shameless villany 
had reached such a pitch that the only hope for 
the future of the State rested on a strong and 
determined effort being made by honest men to 
wrest the government from the thieves. It had 
become in fact less a political than a moral 
question — it was the fight of honest men against 
thieves. Many of the staunchest Democrats, 
however, doubted the possibility of electing a 
"straight-out" Democratic ticket, and were 
disposed to compromise by supporting some of 
the more unobjectionable of the Republican 
party. The good sense and patriotism of the 
majority of the party, however, prevailed, and 
it was felt that, if they would but be true to 
themselves and spare no effort to vote their full 
strength, a Democratic ticket composed of none 
but honorable and tried men must be successful 
even against unblushing frauds practised by the 
Election Commissioners, and a ticket was ac- 
cordingly selected with Wade Hampton for 
Governor and Robert M. Sims for Secretary of 
State. It is impossible to describe within the 
limits of this sketch the excitement and enthu- 
siasm everywhere displayed, and the untiring 
energy and self-devotion displayed by all — it 
was more a revolution than an election campaign 
■ — the overthrow of all that was venal and corrupt 
by the best conservative elements of the State — 
the good sense and moderation displayed by all 
engaged, in the face of gross provocation, was 
beyond all praise, and resulted in the complete 
victory for the cause of law and order, and in 
the defeat of a system of bare-faced political 
profligacy and plunder which had long been "a 
lasting disgrace to the State. The whole ticket 
was elected by majorities varying from 600 to 
1,273. 1° consequence of the protracted delay 
caused by the claims of the pretended Chamber- 
lain Government, and the delay of President 
Hayes in recognizing the Hampton Government, 
it was 1S77 before Colonel Sims could take pos- 
session of the Secretary's office, which he has 



since continued to administer with much satis- 
faction to the public and great credit to himself. 
To his energy and zeal is largely due the laying 
out of the grounds of the capitol at Columbia, 
he having induced the Legislature to make a 
suitable appropriation by which the services of 
one of the most experienced landscape garden- 
ers in the United States were secured for the 
purpose, and Colonel Sims has personally super- 
intended the operations which have turned what 
was formerly a barren waste into a beautiful 
garden. 

He has always taken great interest in agri- 
culture, and was for many years one of the 
executive members of the State Agricultural and 
Mechanical Society, and was appointed a mem- 
ber of a committee to open negotiations with 
the different agricultural societies in the North- 
ern States. 

He is an enthusiastic horticulturalist, and has 
recently organized a State Horticultural So- 
ciety, of which he is the President, and has 
given much attention to the cultivation of fruit, 
especially peaches, for the early Northern mar- 
kets, of which he has sent thousands of crates 
during the past season of his own growing, and 
his example is being largely followed by others, 
so that quite a new industry has been developed 
around Columbia in this direction, the climate 
being the finest possible for the purpose. He 
has published some practical essays on fruit cul- 
ture which have met with a want long felt 
amongst the fruit-growers in South Carolina. 
He has a large circle of warm personal friends, 
to whom his manly, truthful and generous dispo- 
sition has endeared him, and his devotion to 
principle and straightforward, impartial official 
conduct has made him deservedly popular 
with men of all shades of political opinion. 

He has married twice — first, in July, 1S57, 
Kate C. Lucky, daughter of William Lucky, 
planter, near Charlotte, N. C, who died in 
1867; and again, in 1S6S, to Ada W. Sims, 
daughter of Colonel James T. Sims, planter and 
merchant, of Columbia. His eldest son, Robert 
E. Sims, is at present a student of the King's 
Mountain Military Academy at Yorkville, S. C. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



443 




ALLEN YOUNG STOKES, Esq. 

Virginia. 

LLEN YOUNG STOKES, one of the 
most successful and substantial business 
|u men of Virginia, is the son of the late 
Sylvanus Stokes, of Caswell county, N. 
C. His father was an influential farmer, 
and was highly respected in his section of the 
State as a man of sterling qualities, and whose 
ambition was to bring up his family to be useful 
citizens. Mr. Stokes was born in Caswell county 
on 25th day of April, 1819, and is therefore in 
the fifty-ninth year of his age. In early life he 
was placed at school under the care of the Rev- 
erend Elias Dodson, at that time pastor and 
spiritual guide to the people of his county, who 
was a man of marked character, possessing the 
most remarkable memory for names, dates, and 
events running back during the last fifty years, 
and was withal a most devout Christian, and 
by his walk and conversation laid the founda- 
tion deep and strong in the minds and hearts of 
his scholars, and in many instances the good 
effects can be seen even at this late day. When 
a youth of nineteen years he started out on the 
voyage of life, with no other capital than firm 
and fixed honest principles, resolved to deal 
fairly with his fellow-man, having the good hon- 
est motto ever before his mind, "to do unto 
others as you would have them do to you," and 
with this guide he has realized the most san- 
guine expectations, and is now reaping the re- 
ward of his well-spent life, enjoying the com- 
forts of home-life and honored by his fellow- 
citizens. His business career was commenced 
in the town of Danville, Virginia, by entering 
while yet a boy into a copartnership with Mr. 
Dickinson — the firm-name was Dickinson & 
Stokes. This business arrangement was not a 
success, and the subject of this article found 
himself, before arriving at the age of twenty- 
one, heavily involved by several thousand dol- 
lars, more than he was worth. The early prin- 
ciples ingrafted upon his mind made him resolve 
to pay the full amount of the firm's indebted- 
ness, both principal and interest, although he 



had to work on a salary to accomplish the end. 
Such conduct on the part of an unsuccessful 
merchant now-a-days would sound strange, as 
the Bankrupt Court, with its complicated 
machinery, is now resorted to as the means of 
paying honest debts. Not having met with the 
success he hoped for in Danville, in the year 
1845 he removed to Richmond and entered, as 
salesman, the extensive wholesale dry -goods 
house of Wadsworth, Turner & Co. 

Mr. Stokes proved himself a competent sales- 
man, bringing to his business an affable manner 
and always representing the goods he sold in 
such a way as to secure the friendship and retain 
the customer, and this can only be done by 
honest and faithful dealings. During his 
engagement with this house he had a good 
opportunity of forming a wide acquaintance with 
merchants of North Carolina, Virginia and 
Tennessee, and adjoining States, and the friend- 
ship formed in those days continues up to the 
present time. 

While living with Wadsworth, Turner & Co., 
Mr. Stokes, like most young men, felt it was 
not good to be alone, and after the most careful 
consideration, he was favored by one of the 
most accomplished of Virginia's far-famed 
daughters, Miss M. M. Pickett, daughter of 
General Pickett, of Richmond. The name of 
Pickett stands among the most honored in the 
State, and this lady who has become his life- 
partner is in every way fitted to reign in the 
circle which she so well adorns, and by the wise 
use of the abundant means of her husband, give 
aid and comfort to many sad hearts and bring 
sunshine to many homes which were made sad 
and cheerless by the hand of cruel war. There 
is no more important step for any man to take 
than in the selection of a wife, and this is espe- 
cially true in a merchant. After his marriage 
he returned to Danville, entering business again 
on his own account, but he soon found that 
Richmond had many advantages over Danville 
as a central point for business, and after forming 
business relations with Mr. B. C. Flanagan, of 
Albemarle county, and Mr. George Rives, he 
removed to Richmond and resumed business 



444 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



under the style of Flanagan, Stokes & Co. 
After several years operations under this firm- 
name the business was dissolved, and since that 
time he has had several partners, changing to 
Stokes Co. ; Stokes & Rives ; Stokes, William- 
son & Co. ; to the present firm of A. Y. Stokes 
& Co., importers, wholesale grocers, and gen- 
eral commission merchants, his partners to-day 
being Mr. Thomas Potts and one of his six sons, 
Mr. William G. Stokes. 

A. Y. Stokes has by his indefatigable energy 
and patient perseverance advanced step by step, 
until to-day his name is one of the most honored 
and responsible among the high-toned and en- 
lightened merchants of Virginia and the South. 
The house of which he is the founder and senior 
partner has passed through the trying twelve 
years since the war, while many time-honored 
and highly respectable houses were forced to 
succumb by the crisis through which our coun- 
try has passed. The business of A. Y. Stokes & 
Co. extends not only through Virginia and North 
Carolina but also in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, 
Illinois, West Virginia, Iowa, Michigan, and 
down South as far as New Orleans and Texas. 

In height Mr. Stokes is five feet ten inches, 
with full round face, with a good Roman nose ; 
his hair and beard are beginning to show some 
of the silver threads of age, which detract noth- 
ing from his appearance. He is a man of few 
words, is retiring in his disposition, calmly hears, 
and carefully digests before expressing an opin- 
ion, but when expressed he is apt to hold fast. 
In this respect he is the counterpart of nearly all 
the successful men of our day and country. 

Although his business is extensive and large, 
yet he devotes a part of his time to other duties, 
filling several high and important offices of trust. 
He is one of the Vice-Presidents of the Richmond 
and Danville and Piedmont Railroad Company, 
of which Colonel A. S. Buford is the President, 
which runs from Richmond to Greensboro, N. 
C, thence to Raleigh and Charlotte, with a 
connecting road to Salem. This road has con- 
tributed more to the prosperity of Richmond 
than any other line of transportation in Vir- 
ginia. Mr. Stokes is also President of the Mer- 



chants' and Mechanics' Fire Insurance Company 
of Richmond, and his close association to this 
company has given it an extensive and valuable 
patronage and popularity enjoyed by few similar 
institutions in the South. He is also a partner 
in the banking house of Wm. S. Patton, Sons & 
Co., of Danville, a place that has shown more 
real prosperity and go-ahead than any other 
town in the Southern States, and it is to-day 
one of the very best and largest markets for fine 
leaf-tobacco in the world. He has no political 
aspirations, but more than once he has been 
honored by his fellow-citizens with a seat in the 
Council Chamber of Richmond. During the 
late war he was tendered, by Hon. C. G. Mem- 
minger, the Secretary of the Confederate States 
Treasury, with the important office of Receiver 
of Tax in kind, .for the States of Virginia and 
North Carolina, an office he filled to the entire 
satisfaction of the government. He is an exten- 
sive land-owner and planter in North Carolina, 
and is also interested in many of the money in- 
stitutions and banks of Richmond, being a 
Director in the First National and City Saving 
Bank ; and he displays in every department of 
commerce the same rare ability and clear judg- 
ment that has distinguished him in his own 
firm's business. He is a member of the Episco- 
pal Church, and a helper in every good work 
that has for its object the relief of suffering. As 
a merchant and citizen he is honored and re- 
spected by all who know him in person or by 
reputation, and in a special manner he can be 
classed with that honorable band of worthy citi- 
zens who now adorn almost every place of posi- 
tion in the country, whether State or national 
— a self-made man. 

GOVERNOR WILTZ. 

m Louisiana. 

JttffllOUIS ALFRED WILTZ was born, Janu- 
i | \' ary 23d, 1843, m New Orleans, La., 



LW 



and is the son of Theophile Wiltz, mer- 



chant, of that city. The Wiltz familv 
are of German-Spanish descent, their 
paternal ancestors having been among the first 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4<5 



German settlers in Louisiana, while Thomas 
Barroso Villanueva, maternal grandfather of the 
subject of this sketch, came to this country with 
the Spanish army. The Villanuevas are a noble 
Spanish family, and many of its members have 
occupied distinguished positions in their own 
country and in the diplomatic service in different 
parts of the world. P. S. Wiltz, uncle of Louis, 
was a prominent politician and merchant for 
many years in Louisiana, having served in the 
Legislature, as alderman, as member of the 
Constitutional Convention of 1861, and for a 
lengthened period as Clerk of the Second Dis- 
trict Court of New Orleans. 

Louis A. Wiltz was educated at the public 
schools in his native city, and at sixteen years 
of age left the High school and entered a mer- 
cantile house, which failed shortly afterwards, 
when he went to assist his uncle, then Clerk in 
the Second District Court. At the outbreak of 
the war, though but eighteen ■ years old, he en- 
listed as a private in one of the companies of the 
Orleans Artillery that were organized. Shortly 
afterwards he was elected Captain of the Wiltz 
Guards, Company E, Chalmette regiment of 
infantry, and was stationed at Fort Jackson. 
His regiment was captured while on picket duty 
at the Quarantine Station, in 1862, being the 
first to fall victims to the Federal fleet after they 
had passed the forts. His father was a captain 
in the same regiment, and died from sickness 
about the time of their capture. Louis was soon 
afterwards exchanged, and served on detached 
duty in the Mississippi Department, and was 
subsequently transferred to the Trans-Mississippi 
Department, serving in the cavalry, and after- 
wards as Provost Marshal and Commander of 
the Post, at Franklin, La., until the close of the 
war. Though quite a young man, his superior 
officers had forwarded to the War Department 
an application for his promotion as Major of 
Scouts. 

He returned to New Orleans July 16th, 1865, 
and engaged in mercantile pursuits with his 
uncle. In 1868 he was elected to the State 
Legislature from the Ninth Representative Dis- 
trict of the parish of Orleans, and in the year 



1S69 was elected a member of the School Board. 
In the same year he became a member of the 
Upper Board of Aldermen, and by that body 
was unanimously chosen its President. In the 
same year the Democratic Nominating Conven- 
tion unanimously nominated him for Mayor of 
New Orleans, the youngest man that had ever 
been named for that position. The Republican 
Legislature, then in session, fearing that the 
Democrats would elect the city ticket, postponed 
the election, which was shortly to have taken 
place, and framed a new charter for the city, 
which is still in existence. The then Execu- 
tive, Governor Warmouth, was authorized to 
appoint, the officers under the new charter for 
that year, and the law provided that an election 
should be held in the following year. He was 
renominated for the Mayoralty in 1870, and, 
though elected to the office, was counted out by 
the Returning Board. In 1872 he was again 
nominated, and, being again elected, took the 
office by force and served a term of two years, 
winning golden opinions for his honorable, just 
and impartial conduct in the administration of 
his office during that peculiarly trying period in 
the history of New Orleans. 

In April, 1874, Louisiana was devastated by a 
terrible flood, a calamity that surpassed in ex- 
tent and ruinous consequences any that has 
occurred from fire, storms, or flood on this con- 
tinent during this century. The Mississippi, in 
average high water, from Memphis to the Gulf, 
is confined by artificial banks or levees to a 
channel varying from half a mile to a mile in 
width. But for these embankments the unpar- 
alleled flood of 1874 would have formed for all 
this distance a continuous lake, covering the 
whole alluvial country, from twenty-five to one 
hundred and seventy-five miles in width, and 
more than six hundred miles long. But in spite 
of these levees, considerably more than half of 
this area was submerged. The levees could not 
withstand the Mississippi in its mighty and ruth- 
less violence, and gave way in numerous cre- 
vasses, varying from one hundred feet to five 
thousand feet in width, and aggregating fully six 
miles. Through these great chasms the floods 



44<5 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



poured from April 15th to May 20th before they 
commenced to abate, in a stream seven feet in 
average depth and at the rate of more than seven 
miles an hour. It was estimated by a practical 
engineer, especially familiar with the inundated 
district, that the area submerged in Louisiana 
alone was 8,065,000 acres, or 12,600 square 
miles, while in Mississippi 2,500,000 acres, and 
in Arkansas 2,000,000 acres, additional, were 1 
submerged. The distress that ensued among the 
ruined, destitute and famishing people was some- 
thing appalling, and nothing but the ceaseless 
and untiring efforts of Mayor Wiltz and the 
Relief Committee prevented thousands of people 
from starving to death on the borders of the 
Mississippi. Many of the Northern and Western 
States responded nobly to the call for help, 
Boston, Mass., alone contributing $40,000, and 
Mayor Wiltz, who was Chairman and Treasurer 
of the Relief Committee, collected in all over 
§170,000. The Federal government issued vast 
quantities of stores for distribution among the 
sufferers. For thirty days, ending May 29th, 
an average of 56,219 rations were distributed 
daily, subsisting at least 70,000 people. From 
the day that the first warning word came down 
the river, Mr. Wiltz was indefatigable in aiding 
his afflicted fellow-citizens. Never ceasing in 
his exertions, always the first to place his shoul- 
der to the wheel, many times enduring unde- 
served censure, and never seeking praise, the 
history of the relief of Louisiana is a monument 
to the qualities of Mr. Wiltz's head and heart 
which will challenge admiration as long as there 
is a levee to be guarded or a crevasse to be 
feared. 

Ever since' the fraudulent counting in by the 
Returning Board and forcible installation of the 
Kellogg government, in 1872, a very bitter feel- 
ing had prevailed among the majority of the 
people against the usurping officials, and this 
culminated in an open-air mass meeting being 
held on Canal street, on September 14th, 1874. 
At this meeting a committee was appointed to 
wait on the acting Governor Kellogg and de- 
mand the resignation of himself and officers, on 
the ground that they had not been rightfully 



elected to their offices, but had been counted in 
by the Returning Board. This demand being 
refused caused an uprising of the people and the 
installation by them of the rightfully elected 
government. The Metropolitan police and 
militia were brought into armed conflict with 
the populace, and some severe fighting ensued, 
in which numbers were killed on both sides. 
This successful assertion of the rights of the 
people drew forth the following proclamation 
from Mayor Wiltz : 

" Mayoralty of New Orleans, Sept. lyh, 1874. 

" Citizens of New Orleans: It becomes my 
duty to congratulate you upon the restoration 
of the duly elected and rightful State authorities. 
After enduring for nearly two )'ears the control 
of usurpers, their acts of tyranny have at length 
called for resistance. This was instantaneous, 
universal and entirely successful, not a single 
usurping official being now in the exercise of his 
functions within the limits of the city. The 
employment of force became a necessity. We 
deplore the resulting loss of life, while we honor 
the memory of the noble men who fell in de- 
fence of the rights dear to all who desire to be 
free. Upon this signal and most honorable re- 
covery of your political and civil rights, let me 
advise extreme moderation. Resume your avo- 
cations as soon as dismissed from organized 
ranks. Use the utmost forbearance towards 
those who hold political opinions adverse to 
yours. Interfere with no peaceful assemblage 
of your fellow-citizens of any race or color. Use 
all your influence to preserve the peace and to 
maintain the supremacy of the law. Prove to 
the world that you can be as forbearing to those 
who have usurped and abused authority as you 
were patient and long-suffering under their 
tyranny. Seek no revenge for past injuries, 
but leave your fallen enemies to the tortures of 
their own consciences and to the lasting infamy 
which their acts have won for them. 

"Louis A. Wiltz, Mayor." 

In October, 1874, at the meeting of the Demo- 
cratic Nominating Convention, he was renomi- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



447 



nated for Mayor on the first ballot ; but, a dis- 
pute arising as to numbers, a recount was taken, 
during which, through an error, three members 
were permitted to change their votes, and his 
opponent, C. J. Leeds, received the nomina- 
tion. Considerable feeling was exhibited, which 
threatened the disruption of the Democratic 
party, when Mr. Wiltz addressed the following 
letter to the presiding officer of the convention : 

"To R. H. Marr, Esq., 

President Parish Convention : 
" Dear Sir: It is manifest that the action of 
the convention over which you lately presided 
(so far as the mayoralty is involved) has thrown 
our party into a state of indecision and ferment, 
which it becomes the part of patriotism and of 
duty now to allay. Whatever may be the wrong 
to which I have been subjected, the path of 
honor lies before me; and that path I intend to 
tread. It is true that I am sensible of the ex- 
tent and measure of the sacrifice; but when the 
necessity of securing unity and allaying dissen- 
sions in our ranks forces itself upon my mind, I 
feel that I am obeying the impulses of my heart 
and of my reason. I therefore formally announce 
to you that I withdraw now all my claims to the 
nomination for the Mayoralty of New Orleans in 
favor of my late opponent, C. J. Leeds, Esq., 
and will urge my friends to acquiesce in the 
resolution which I have calmly and dispassion- 
ately taken. "I am with respect, 

"Louis A. Wiltz. 

"October Sc/i, 1874." 

This "noble act of self-abnegation," as it 
was fittingly termed by the New Orleans Pica- 
yune and the other papers of the city, restored 
harmony, and Mr. Wiltz received for the second 
time the nomination to the House of Represent- 
atives from the Ninth District, to which he was 
duly elected. Immediately after this he was 
elected Assistant Cashier of the State National 
Bank, and placed in charge of its branch deposi- 
tory, and shortly afterwards was elected its Vice- 
President. 

January 5th, 1875, was a memorable day in 
the history of Louisiana. While the House of 



Representatives, as permanently organized, with 
Mr. Wiltz as Speaker, was taking a recess, wait- 
ing for the Committee on Credentials to report, 
General De Trobriand, commanding the United 
States forces detailed in New Orleans, entered 
the Hall, and, walking up to the Secretary's 
desk, addressed the Speaker, saying he had re- 
ceived a communication from Governor Kellogg 
which he desired the Clerk'to read. Mr. Wiltz 
objecting, the communication was read by the 
general's adjutant. It stated that an illegal 
body was in session in the State House, claim- 
ing to be the House of Representatives, and 
asked that they be ejected and the legal mem- 
bers,, as returned by the Returning Board, who 
would be pointed out by Mr. Vigers, former 
Clerk of the House, be installed. Speaker Wiltz 
asked General De Trobriand if General Emory, 
his superior officer, knew of these orders ; the 
general replied that he had been ordered by 
General Emory to obey Governor Kellogg, and 
that he was acting as a soldier and must obey 
his superior officer. Speaker Wiltz said he was 
the Speaker of the House of Representatives of 
the State of Louisiana, and would maintain its 
dignity, and refused to allow any member to be 
ejected unless a resort was made to superior force 
by the United States troops. General De Tro- 
briand then retired, and a file of soldiers entered 
the Hall and proceeded to eject five Conserva- 
tive members, marching them out one at a time 
between the soldiers ; they also attempted to 
support Vigers in reading the roll, Speaker 
Wiltz protesting. We may here remark that the 
State House was barricaded and crowded inside 
with the Metropolitan police and the Kellogg 
militia, and none were permitted to enter the 
building except the members returned as elected 
by the Returning Board and those friendly to 
Kellogg. In front of the State House, in line 
of battle, was drawn up a United States regi- 
ment of infantry, and on one side artillery, and 
on the other cavalry, while a gun-boat was sta- 
tioned at the foot of the street. General De 
Trobriand having asked if it would be necessary 
to employ force, and being answered in the af- 
firmative, two officers, with soldiers carrying 



448 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



guns, with bayonets attached, entered the Hall 
and marched up to the platform. Then the 
Speaker, rising, said : 

"As the legal Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the State of Louisiana, I have pro- 
tested against the invasion of our Hall by the 
soldiers of the United States, with drawn bayo- 
nets and loaded muskets. We have seen our 
brother members violently seized by force of 
arms and torn from us, in spite of their solemn 
protest. We have seen a force of soldiers march 
up the aisles of the Hall of Representatives of 
Louisiana. I have protested against this in the 
name of a once free people. In the name of the 
once free State of Louisiana, in the name of the 
Union, I again enter my solemn protest. The 
chair of the only Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of Louisiana is surrounded by United 
States troops, the officers of the House are pris- 
oners in their hands, so I solemnly declare that 
Louisiana has ceased to be a sovereign State, 
that it has no longer a republican government, 
and I call on the Representatives of the State to 
retire with me before this show of arms." 

Speaker Wiltz with all the Conservative mem- 
bers then left the hall in a body, and marched 
to the Conservative head-quarters, 71 St. Louis 
street, followed by an immense concourse of 
citizens, who cheered them vociferously. The 
number of Conservative members present at the 
organization of the House was fifty-six, by whom 
Mr. Wiltz was elected Speaker ; the number of 
Radical members was fifty-three, most of whom 
left after the vote for Speaker was taken. Coo- 
ley, the great constitutional lawyer, gave a 
lengthy opinion, declaring the organization of 
the House of Representatives under Wiltz legal 
and constitutional. The protest of Speaker 
Wiltz was used throughout the Union as a 
strong campaign document against the Repub- 
lican party, and had much to do with its down- 
fall. Upon returning to their rooms, the Con- 
servative members passed the following resolu- 
tions: 

"New Orleans, January 4U1, 1875. 

" Resolutions of the Caucus of the House of 
Representatives of the State of Louisiana, upon 



returning to their rooms, 71 St. Louis street, 
after the unlawful expulsion of the members 
thereof by the soldiers of the United States : 

"Resolved, That we have seen, with profound 
emotion, the events just transpired by which, 
for the first time in the history of this country, 
the Legislature of a sovereign State has been 
suppressed, and its members expelled by Federal 
arms. 

"Resolved, That we have further witnessed, 
with great satisfaction amid these unparalleled 
and trying scenes, the firm, patient and patriotic 
conduct of the Hon. Louis A. Wiltz, of Orleans, 
Speaker of the House, who displayed upon the 
occasion those elements of character which sat- 
isfies us that in electing him Speaker we have 
the right man in the right place. 

"Resolved, That the thanks of the Caucus be 
and the same are hereby tendered to Speaker 
Wiltz for the courageous and efficient adminis- 
tration of his office during its continuance, end 
whatever may betide us or the liberty outraged 
by bayonet rule, we shall ever cherish, with 
lively satisfaction, the memory of our Speaker's 
fortitude, moderation and justice. 
"Unanimously carried. 

" Edward Booth, 
"Peter J. Trezevant, "Chairman Caucus. 
"Clerk." 

After his withdrawal from the State House, 
Speaker Wiltz transmitted the following telegram 
to General Grant : 

'* House of Representatives, New Orleans, 

"January \th, 1875. 

"To the President of the United States: 

" I have the honor to inform you that the 
House of Representatives organized to-day, by 
the election of myself as Speaker, fifty-eight 
members, two more than a quorum, voting, with 
a full house present. More than two hours after 
the organization, I was informed by the officer 
in command of the United States troops in the 
city that he had been requested by Governor 
Kellogg to remove certain members of the House 
from the State House, and that under his orders 
he was obliged to comply with the request. I 
protested against any interference of the United 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



449 



States army with the organization or proceedings 
of the House, but, notwithstanding this, the 
officer in command marched a company of sol- 
diers upon the floor of the House, and by force 
removed thirteen members who had been legally 
and constitutionally seated as such, and who, at 
the time of such forcible removal, were partici- 
pating in the proceedings of the House. In 
addition to this, the military declared their 
purpose to further interfere with force in the 
business of the organization of this Assembly, 
upon which some fifty-two members and the 
Speaker withdrew, declining to participate any 
longer in the business of the House under the 
dictation of the military. As Speaker, I re- 
spectfully appeal to you to know by what author- 
ity and under what law the United States army 
interrupted and broke up a session of the House 
cf Representatives of the State of Louisiana, and 
to earnestly request and demand that they be 
ordered to restore the House to the position it 
occupied when they interfered ; and further, 
that they be so instructed that it is no part of 
their duty to interfere in any manner with the 
internal workings of the General Assembly. 
The House is the representation of the sover- 
eignty of the State, and I know of no law which 
warrants either the Executive of the State or the 
United States army to interfere with its organi- 
zation or proceedings. 

"Louis A. Wiltz, 
" Speaker House of Representatives 
Of the State of Louisiana." 

To this no answer was vouchsafed by the 
Administration. 

After the ejection of the Conservative mem- 
bers of the Louisiana House of Representatives 
from the hall of the Legislature, they prepared 
the following Memorial, which was forwarded to 
the United States Congress, copies being also 
sent to the Governor of every State in the 
Union : 

CONSERVATIVE MEMORIAL. 
" To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives 

of the United States of America in Congress Assembled : 

" The House of Representatives of the State 
of Louis ana, duly organized in accordance with 
29 



the laws of the State, would most respectfully 
state to your honorable bodies that, having con- 
vened in the capitol of the State on the 4th day 
of January, 1875, an d having organized perma- 
nently according to law, their Speaker and a 
majority of the members were compelled to 
retire by the troops of the United States ; the 
facts being as follows : 

"On Monday, January 4th, 1875, at I2 
o'clock m., the Clerk of the former House 
called the roll of members as returned by the 
Returning Board, to the number of one hundred . 
and six — one hundred and eleven constituting a 
full house — and after reading the certificate of 
the Secretary of State attached thereto, an- 
nounced a quorum present; fifty-six being the 
number required. Thereupon, on motion of 
Mr. Billieu, of Lafourche, which was carried, 
the Hon. L. A. Wiltz, of Orleans, took the 
chair as temporary Speaker. Mr. Wiltz, as 
Speaker, called the House to order. The oath 
of office was duly administered to him by Jus- 
tice Houston, and thereupon the Speaker ad- 
ministered the oath to the returned members of 
the House. A motion was then made to declare 
Mr. P. J. Trezevant Clerk of the House pro tern., 
which was carried. A motion was next made 
to appoint Mr. E. Flood Sergeant-at-Arms pro 
tern., which was carried. Motions and calls from 
both the Republican a:;d Conservative sides for a 
permanent organization followed, but great con- 
fusion prevailing, the chair refused to entertain 
any motion until order was somewhat restored. 
The following resolution, offered by Mr. Billieu, 
of Lafourche, was then moved and passed : 

"Be it 'Hesolved, That James Brice, Jr., of 
the parish of Bienville, Charles Schuler and 
John L. Scales, of the parish of De Soto, C. C. 
Dunn, of the parish of Grant, and George A. 
Kelley, of the parish of Winn, be and they are 
hereby declared duly elected members of this 
House, and as such are entitled to their seats, re- 
serving to their opponents, if any, all rights of 
contestation.' 

"These five, being members from the four 
parishes, whose returns the Returning Board had 
neglected to promulgate, and had referred to the 



45° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Legislature for its decision, were then duly 
sworn in and took their seats. Thereafter, mo- 
tions from both Republicans and Conservatives 
were made for a permanent organization, and 
the Speaker announced the motion carried. Mr. 
L. A. Wiltz was nominated by the Conserva- 
tives, and Messrs. Hahn and C. W. Lowell by 
the Republicans. Mr. Lowell declined. The 
Speaker then ordered the roll to be called, which 
roll was the same as called by the former Clerk, 
Mr. Vigers (then functus officio), with the addi- 
tion of the five names above mentioned. The 
roll being called, the Clerk announced the vote 
as follows: L. A. Wiltz, fifty-five votes; M. 
Hahn, two votes; blank, one vote — Mr. Wiltz 
voting blank. No objection or dispute was 
made to the count, or to the announcement of 
the vote. At this juncture several of the Re- 
publican members indicated a disposition to 
leave the hall, and a number of these retired. 
Mr. Wiltz was duly sworn, and the roll being 
called, the members came to the Speaker's stand 
and were sworn in by him, four at a time, to the 
number of fifty-nine (59), including Messrs. 
Baker, Drury, Hahn, Murrill and Thomas, Re- 
publicans, who remained and participated in the 
proceedings after the permanent organization. 
A motion was then made and carried to elect 
Mr. Trezevant Chief Clerk of the House ; and 
another motion was made and carried, electing 
Mr. E. Flood Sergeant-at-Arms of the House. 
Thus was the permanent organization of the 
House of Representatives effected, in accordance 
with the Constitution of the State of Louisiana — 
see Articles 17, 20, 34 and 46 of the Constitu- 
tion of the State of Louisiana, and Section 44 of 
Act 98 of 1872 — and in accordance with law 
and parliamentary usage. The Speaker then 
announced that the House was ready for busi- 
ness, and notices of contest of elections were 
given. On motion of Mr. Dupre, of Orleans, a 
committee of seven on elections and returns was 
appointed, consisting of Messrs. Dupre, Pipes, 
Carloss, Young, Hammond, Hahn, and Thomas. 
In the meanwhile, during the proceedings in the 
House, an additional number of police, with a 
crowd of disorderly persons, entered the lobby 



and engaged in menacing altercation with the 
Sergeant-at-Arms and his ten assistants. Find- 
ing the Sergeants-at-Arms were contending with 
the mob, the Speaker endeavored to procure the 
attendance of additional Sergeants-at-Arms, and 
for this purpose addressed a note to the officials, 
who were in possession and control of the barri- 
caded doors of the State House, to allow fifty 
citizens to be admitted for that purpose. This 
request, made in writing, was refused. About 
one o'clock p. m. the disturbance in the lobby 
grew serious, and a conflict was imminent. 
Then, in order to avoid a collision, General De 
Trobriand, of the United States army, who had 
some time previously entered and occupied the 
State House with his soldiers, was sent for. 
After entering the hall, he was addressed by the 
Speaker as follows : ' General De Trobriand, at 
the request of the members of the House of 
Representatives, I have sent for you to say that 
the House of Representatives of the State of 
Louisiana is organized, with myself as permanent 
Speaker, and to request you, if your orders will 
permit, to please say a few words to the unruly 
persons in the lobby, and thereby prevent blood- 
shed. I feel and know that I can maintain the 
dignity of the House, but it is not my wish, nor 
that of the members of the House, to bring on a 
conflict. Hence, you will oblige me if you will 
say a few words to the lobby. ' The General 
then retired to the lobby and spoke to the crowd, 
which then dispersed, and order was restored. 
After this interruption, the House proceeding 
with its business, the Committee on Elections 
and Returns reported, and upon their report the 
following-named Representatives were duly sworn 
in and seated as members : Messrs. John O'Quinn, 
of the parish of Avoyelles ; J. J. Horan, A. D. 
Land and Thomas R. Vaughn, of the parish of 
Caddo ; J. Jeffries, R. L. Luckett, and G. W. 
Stafford, of the parish of Rapides, and William 
F. Schwing, of the parish of Iberia. 

"Afterward, while the proceedings of the 
House were quietly progressing, about the hour 
of three o'clock p. m. , General P. R. De Tro- 
briand, commanding the United States troops 
in and around the State House, entered the hall 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4Si 



in uniform, his sword by his side, and accom- 
panied by two of his staff and by Mr. Vigers, 
the former clerk of the House, and addressed 
Speaker Wiltz, exhibiting the documents of 
which the following are copies : 

" ' State of Louisiana, Executive Department, 

"' New Orleans, January 4th, 1S75. 
" * General De Trobriand, Commanding : 
An illegal assembly of men having taken posses- 
sion of the Hall of the House of Representatives, 
and the police not being able to dislodge them, 
I respectfully request that you will immediately 
clear the hall and State House of all persons not 
returned as legal members of the House of 
Representatives by the Returning Board of the 
State. "'W. P. Kellogg, Governor.' 

" ' State of Louisiana, Executive Department, 

"'New Orleans, January ifh, 1S75. 
" ' General De Trobriand : The clerk of the 
House, who has in his possession the roll issued 
by the Secretary of State as the legal mem- 
bers of the blouse of Representatives, will point 
out to you those persons now in the Hall of the 
House of Representatives returned by the legal 
Returning Board of the State. 

" ' W. P. Kellogg, Governor.' 

"The Speaker refused to allow Mr. Vigers to 
read these documents, he not being clerk of the 
House, and, at the request of General De Tro- 
briand, they were read by his adjutant. Speaker 
Wiltz then asked General De Trobriand : ' Have 
you submitted these documents to General 
Emory ? ' 

"General De Trobriand. — 'I have not, but I 
presume that duplicate copies have been sent to 
him.' 

"Speaker Wiltz. — 'General, I wish to say to 
you that since our organization we have ad- 
mitted, sworn in, and seated five members from 
referred parishes ; are these members to be 
ejected ? ' 

" General De Trobriand. — 'I am but a sol- 
dier ; these are my orders. I cannot enter into 
the consideration of that question.' The Gen- 
eral further stated that he was under instructions 
to obey the orders of Governor Kellogg. 



"Speaker Wiltz. — 'I respect you, General, as 
a gentleman and a soldier, and dislike to give 
you trouble; but I, like you, have a duty to 
perform, which I owe to my State, to maintain 
the dignity and- authority of my position as 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. Force 
will have to be used before I can permit you to 
execute your orders.' 

"Upon the refusal of Speaker Wiltz and Mr. 
Trezevant, the Clerk, to point out the persons, 
and the refusal of Speaker Wiltz to allow Mr. 
Vigers to call the roll for the purpose of identi- 
fying the members then, Hugh J. Campbell and 
T. C. Anderson assisted General De Trobriand 
in identifying the members to be ejected. Gen- 
eral De Trobriand then ordered his soldiers, 
fully armed and with fixed bayonets, into the 
hall, from the lobby, and approached the mem- 
bers successively, while in their seats, to wit : 
O'Quinn, Vaughn, Stafford, Jeffries, Luckett, 
Dunn, Kelly, Horan and Land, and one by one 
he caused them to be taken from the hall by his 
soldiers, each gentleman first rising in his place 
and entering his solemn protest, in the name of 
his constituents, against unlawful expulsion. 
Thus were these gentlemen ignominiously ar- 
rested, and despite their public protestation and 
their appeals to the Speaker and the House for 
protection, which neither could afford, were 
taken from their seats and forcibly ejected from 
the Hall of the House of Representatives of the 
State of Louisiana, at the point of the bayonet, 
by the officers and soldiers of the United States 
army. General De Trobriand then proceeded 
to eject the clerk and arrest the proceedings of 
the Assembly, and for that purpose brought a 
file of soldiers to the Speaker's stand ; when the 
Speaker arose and addressed the House as 
follows : 

" 'As the legal Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the State of Louisiana, I protest 
against the invasion of our hall by the soldiers 
of the United States with loaded muskets and 
fixed bayonets. We have seen our brother-mem- 
bers violently seized by force of arms and torn 
from us in spite of their solemn protest. We 
have seen a file of soldiers march up the aisle of 



45 2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the Hall of the Representatives of Louisiana, and 
have protested against this in the name of a once 
free people. In the name of the down-trodden 
State of Louisiana, I again enter my solemn 
protest. Gentlemen, the chair of the Speaker 
of the House of Representatives of the State of 
Louisiana is surrounded by United States 
troops, the Hall of the House of Representatives 
in possession of armed forces, and I call upon 
the Representatives of the State of Louisiana to 
retire, with me, from their presence.' The 
Speaker then left the hall, followed by all the 
Conservative members, the hall being left in 
possession of the military. 

"If we have dwelt thus somewhat at length 
upon the details of military overthrow of a 
sovereign State, and her reduction to a province, 
it is that other States may see and know the 
process whereby the overthrow of their own 
liberties may be accomplished. We solemnly 
warn the American people, jealous of their liber- 
ties, that a military power dispersing a House of 
Representatives in the State of Louisiana, may 
yet serve as a precedent to shackle them and 
their posterity, if, in the hour of trial, standing 
as we do to-Hay, amid the ruins of constitutional 
liberty, they leave us to our fate. All of which 
is respectfully submitted. 

"Louis A. Wiltz, Speaker." 

Mr. Wiltz received warm praise from all sec- 
tions for his manly and dignified action on this 
trying occasion ; the New Orleans Bulletin of 
January 5th said : 

"We cannot refrain from bearing willing tes- 
timony to the gallant bearing of Speaker Wiltz 
during the exciting and unparalleled scenes con- 
sequent upon the meeting of the Legislature 
yesterday. He bore himself like a cool, brave, 
honest man, and was fully equal to every emer- 
gency that presented itself. He was master of 
the situation from first to last, and displayed 
coolness, tact and courage quite remarkable in 
so young a man. The various attempts to over- 
awe and intimidate him failed utterly, and he 
maintained his position under circumstances the 



most exciting, novel and trying, with true dig- J for Governor by far that New Orleans ever had 



nity and unquestionable pluck. The inter- 
ference of the United States troops was made by 
him as odious as possible, and he only yielded 
when the bayonets of the soldiers were brought 
into active use. He was worthy of the time and 
the occasion, and rose to meet the crisis which 
suddenly confronted him with a nobility and 
dignity which made us proud to own him a 
native Louisianian. His address to the Legisla- 
ture upon the assumption by the military of the 
right to appoint a clerk for the House over 
which he presided, and to ignore him, and sub- 
sequent to the forcible ejection by the soldiers 
of the five members of the House, was all that 
the occasion demanded, and his earnest and 
eloquent protest will not go unheeded but will 
ring through the country like a bugle-blast, 
warning all lovers of free institutions to beware 
lest that liberty be wrested from them and a 
military despotism be erected upon the ruins of 
this once glorious Republic." 

A portion of the Conservative members sub- 
sequently agreed upon a compromise with the 
usurpers, against which Mr. Wiltz protested in 
vigorous terms, and offered to resign the Speaker- 
ship, which offer he was requested to withdraw. 
On April 16th the House decided to reorganize; 
Mr. Wiltz was elected by the Democratic mem- 
bers in caucus as their candidate, but by a com- 
bination formed between eleven Democrats and 
the Republicans, Mr. Estelette (a compromiser) 
was elected Speaker by a majority over Mr. 
Wiltz. During the session of that Legislature 
Mr. Wiltz took charge of the movement which 
caused the impeachment of Governor Kellogg, 
who was acquitted by the Senate, composed of 
a majority of Republicans, without permitting 
the House an opportunity of making good its 
charges. At the meeting of the Democratic 
Nominating Convention at Baton Rouge, July, 
1876, Mr. Wiltz was the strongest candidate for 
Governor of Louisiana. As an evidence of his 
great popularity in his own city, it may be men- 
tioned that he polled 120 out of the 132 dele- 
gates from the parish of Orleans, and thus 
proved himself to be the most popular candidate 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



453 



On the first ballot he received 140 votes, and on 
the third ballot, not a friend having deserted 
him, 1,423 votes. On the fourth ballot, how- 
ever, General Frank T. Nicholls, having received 
the votes of McEnery, who withdrew, was nomi- 
nated for Governor, and Mr. Wiltz was unani- 
mously tendered the second place on the ticket — 
that of Lieutenant-Governor — which he ac- 
cepted. In the protracted conflict which fol- 
lowed between the Nicholls and Packard gov- 
ernments, resulting in the withdrawal of the 
United States troops and the triumph of con- 
stitutional right, none took a more active 
and decided part than Lieutenant-Governor 
Wiltz. 

In the summer of 1877, his health having 
become somewhat impaired by his incessant at- 
tention to public affairs, Lieutenant-Governor 
Wiltz took a brief respite from his active labors 
and paid a visit to the Northern, Western and 
Eastern States, where he was everywhere received 
with the greatest respect and attention. He 
paid an especial visit to Boston to return thanks 
in person to the mayor of that city for the 
munificent contributions of its citizens to the 
Louisiana Relief Fund, in 1S74. His visit, 
though purely one for health and recreation, 
was productive of much good to the State in 
opening the eyes of mercantile men and others 
to the natural advantages of Louisiana for the 
investment of capital and a field for enterprise. 
In 1879 he was chosen a Delegate to the Con- 
stitutional Convention, a body consisting of one 
hundred and thirty-four members, the largest 
and ablest that has ever sat in Louisiana. By 
this body he was on the first ballot elected Presi- 
dent, his elevation to that position giving 
universal satisfaction, as was evidenced by the 
newspaper press throughout the State. Though 
composed of some of the ablest parliamenta- 
rians in the State, such was his ability, justice 
and impartiality as presiding officer, that no 
appeal was ever taken from his decision; and 
he received the respect and confidence of all 
parties alike. 

He is Vice-President of the State National 
Bank of Louisiana; Director of the Fireman's 



Insurance Company; Director of the Orleans 
Street Railroad ; and President of the Creole 
Fire Company, No. 9. He was for many years 
Vice-President of the Fireman's Charitable As- 
sociation, and has represented the Democratic 
party repeatedly in the Democratic State Cen- 
tral Committee, and Parish Committee. He 
has also acted as Governor during the absence 
of Governor Nicholls from the State. Lieuten- 
ant-Governor Wiltz has taken an important part 
in public affairs since his earliest years, and 
though still quite a young man, has had more 
practical experience than falls to the lot of many 
a statesman during his whole career. As Alder- 
man, Mayor, School Director, Speaker, Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, and President of the Consti- 
tutional Convention, he has received all the 
offices in the gift of the people but the highest, 
and that will without question be his before 
many years are past. In all he has shown 
himself capable, honest, faithful, and fearless, 
and his popularity has constantly increased as 
each new proof of public confidence has been 
placed in his charge. As a presiding officer, 
impartial and prompt, courteous yet firm, his 
abilities have been recognized by all without 
respect to party lines. After presiding over the 
State Senate for three years, but three appeals 
have been taken from his rulings, and as an in- 
stance of the estimation in which he is held by 
its members, the following resolutions passed by 
the Senate in March, 1878, deserve insertion 

here : 

Resolutions. 

"Whereas, The Lieutenant-Governor and 
President of the Senate, the Hon. Louis A. 
Wiltz, by his prompt and impartial rulings on 
all questions that have been before this Senate, 
during the regular and extra sessions, which 
have given rise to debate, has by those rulings 
saved much time and money to the State; and 

'"Whereas, His rulings upon all questions 
pending have been so impartial, and his bearing 
towards the members of this Senate of both 
political parties has been equally courteous and 
polite, that it has resulted in such rapid despatch 
of the business pending during the regular and 



454 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



extra sessions, that the calendar of this Senate 
was clear upon each day's adjournment; and 

"Whereas, His marked ability as a presiding 
officer is recognized by the members of this 
Senate, without regard to party, as unequalled 
in the history of this State ; and 

"Whereas, That ability, with the prompt and 
impartial rulings, has prevented discussion and 
perhaps confusion and bad feeling between those 
of a different political opinion ; be it therefore 

" Resolved, That the thanks of the members of 
this Senate be and the same are hereby tendered 
to our honorable presiding officer, for reasons 
set forth in the foregoing preamble; and be it 
further 

"Resolved, That irrespective of party, race, or 
previous condition, we, the members of the 
Senate of the State of Louisiana, recognize each 
and every the rulings of the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, and President of the Senate, during both 
sessions, as unbiased in the strictest sense of the 
word, and so believing desire to express our 
sentiments as hereinbefore set forth ; and be it 
further 

"Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate 
be and is hereby directed to have these reso- 
lutions 'enrolled,' and that they be then pre- 
sented to the Lieutenant-Governor with the 
seal and signature of the Secretary of the Senate 
attached." 

" Senate Chamber, State of Louisiana. 

"I, John Clegg, Secretary of the Senate, do 
hereby certify that the above and foregoing is a 
true and correct copy of ihe original resolutions 
adopted by the Senate of Louisiana on the nine- 
teenth day of March, a. d. 1878. 

" In witness whereof I have hereunto set my 

official seal and signature this day of 

March, a. d. 1878. "John Clegg, 

[seal.] " Secretary of the Senate. 

"A. H. Harris, Chief Enrolling Clerk." 

As a business man his indefatigable and ener- 
getic administration of the offices to which he 
has several times been elected, together with the 
fact of his having been unanimously elected to 
the Vice-Presidency of the State National Bank 



after a single year's experience, are sufficient 
evidences of his ability and sagacity. Possess- 
ing great administrative capacity combined with 
sound judgment ; vigilant and untiring in the 
discharge of his official duties; of indomitable 
energy and unflinching will ; polished and dig- 
nified yet courteous and urbane, Lieutenant- 
Governor Wiltz has won the warm admiration 
and esteem of all with whom he has been brought 
in contact, and his popularity in his native city 
is equalled by few and excelled by none. 

He married, October 15th, 1862, Miss M. 
Bienvenu, daughter of Charles Gueriniere Bien- 
venu, planter and saw-mill proprietor, of St. 
Martinville, on Bayou Teche. He has five 
children, one of whom is a son. 

Since the foregoing sketch was written, Mr. 
Wiltz has been elected to the highest office in 
the gift of the people — that of Governor of the 
State — by an overwhelming majority, viz., 
34,005, over his opponent. His installation 
took place on January 14th, 1880. 



E. E. BERMUDEZ, Esq. 
t Louisiana. 

Mfiff DWARD EDMUND BERMUDEZ was 



I 



born in New Orleans, La., January 
19th, 1832, and is the son of Judge 
Joachim Bermudez, formerly of that 
city. The Bermudez family are of 
Spanish descent, John Baptist Bermudez, grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, having been 
born in Andalusia, in Spain, and emigrated to 
this country by way of Cuba about the time of 
the Revolutionary war. He was a scholar and 
a man of independent means, and settled in 
New Orleans, where he became an alcalde of the 
city. He married Miss Dufossat, the daughter 
of a wealthy sugar-planter of Louisiana, whose 
ancestors were noble and have owned the 
"Chateau Dufossat" in the Department of the 
Lot, France, for eight centuries past. Joachim 
Bermudez, the son of John Baptist and father 
of Edward Edmund, was born in New Orleans 
and educated at the Orleans College. When 




/O-e^s^t^? 'V!^-^ts<T^£? 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



4SS 



the city was attacked by the British in 1S14, he 
ran away from college to join the army, and 
formed, with a number of his fellow-students, 
an independent company of sharpshooters. He 
studied law, was admitted to the bar, and ap- 
pointed Presiding Judge of the City Court, 
which position he held for many years, and was 
then appointed Judge of the Court of Probate — 
the latter appointment being for life, under the 
constitution of 181 2. In the year 1836 a homi- 
cide was committed in New Orleans; the ac- 
cused, claiming to have acted in self-defence, 
asked for the privilege of bail. The Judge of 
the Criminal Court being absent, it became 
incumbent on one of the other judges to act in 
his stead. The friends of the deceased swore 
that the judge, whoever he might be, who would 
admit the prisoner to bail should be held bodily 
responsible for such action. Owing to the ab- 
sence or illness of the remaining judges, it 
became the duty of the Judge of the Court of 
Probate to entertain the demand. Well aware 
of the threat which had been held out, Judge 
Bermudez nevertheless did not hesitate to do 
what the law imposed upon him as a duty. After 
hearing the evidence, and the counsel, Etienne 
Mazureau, for the State ; Christian Roselius and 
E. A. Canon, lawyers of great distinction, for 
the accused ; he took the case under advisement. 
The next morning he delivered his opinion in 
writing in which, considering that the accused 
had acted in self-defence, he allowed him the 
privilege of bail on bond with three sureties, 
each bound for $ 15, 000. On the evening of 
that day between nine and ten o'clock, faithful 
to their threat, the friends of the deceased 
marched to the Judge's residence and rushed 
into what the law intends shall be the sacred 
and impregnable castle of every citizen. The 
Judge seemed to have been taken by surprise. 
He was ordered to follow his assailants, and, on 
refusing to do so, was instantly seized and over- 
powered before he could procure any weapon ; 
but his wife, a lady of singular beauty and mas- 
culine courage, threw herself upon the combat- 
ants, disengaged one of the arms of her husband, 
and placed in his hand a cavalry sabre which 



was close by. This sword in the hands of a 
brave man did speedy and terrible execution, 
while the fearless bosom of his generous wife 
stood like a shield between the husband and 
every blow aimed at him. In a twinkling two 
of the assailants were stretched dead upon the 
floor of the chamber, the sanctity of which they 
had violated ; a third one was seen reeling 
through the entrance door into the street and 
fell senseless on the pavement. By this time a' 
large number of neighbors arrived with double- 
barrelled guns and opened fire on the assailants, 
who retreated precipitately, many severely 
wounded. The whole affair was over — Mrs. 
Bermudez had saved the life of her husband. 
Her conduct on that occasion excited enthu- 
siastic admiration, and ever since has been re- 
membered and will never be forgotten. "When 
I arrived at the spot where this drama had been 
enacted," said one of those who had come to 
the rescue, "I found Mrs. Bermudez in the 
middle of the room, standing erect between two 
frightfully gashed corpses, her long hair flowing 
down her shoulders, apparently self-possessed, 
but her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, and 
her white robes covered all over with blood. She 
was superb. I assure you that she then appeared 
to me the most beautiful and admirable object I 
had ever seen." She signally proved on that 
occasion the depth and power of woman's love 
and devotion. Judge Bermudez surrendered 
himself to the proper authorities, but was imme- 
diately discharged. His was an evident case 
of lawful self-defence. The foregoing is sub- 
stantially extracted from the memoirs of the 
Hon. Charles Gayarre, the distinguished his- 
torian of Louisiana. 

Under the Constitution of Louisiana of 1852, 
the Judiciary being elective, Judge Bermudez 
was elected Judge of the Second District Court 
of New Orleans, having probate and concurrent 
jurisdiction with the other courts. When the 
Federal forces took possession of the city in 
1 May, 1862, General B. F. Butler endeavored to 
induce Judge Bermudez to take the oath of 
allegiance to the United States; but he refused, 
and was in consequence removed from the 



45 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Bench. He had married Miss Emma Troxler, 
daughter of a wealthy sugar-planter of the parish 
of St. Charles, La., whose ancestors were the 
Barons Troxler of Alsace. He died in 1866, 
four years after his removal from the Bench by 
General Butler. 

Theodule Bermudez, a brother of Joachim, 
removed in 1S18 from New Orleans to Matan- 
zas, Cuba, where he held the office of Sheriff. 
A distant relative, His Excellency Senor Don 
Francisco de Zea Bermudez, was a Minister 
Plenipotentiary from Spain to France, some time 
about the year 1840, where he filled that impor- 
tant position with great honor to himself and 
country. He was a man of most remarkable 
features and dignity — an excellent picture of him 
is religiously preserved in the family. A niece 
of his was a lady of honor to Queen Isabella of 
Spain, and was intrusted with the education, 
religious and classical, of the Infantas, the sisters 
of Alphonsus IX., the present King of Spain ; a 
position which she held until 1875, when, owing 
to ill-health, she retired to her family in Anda- 
lusia. 

Edward E. Bermudez was the godson of Gov- 
ernor E. D. White, of Louisiana; received his 
primary education at Boyer's Academy, in New 
Orleans, an educational establishment of high 
repute at that day, and then went to Spring Hill 
College, near Mobile, where he graduated in 
May, 1 85 1. He studied law in Frankfort, Ky., 
under Thomas B. Monroe, United States District 
Judge, and in October, 185 r, was, on motion 
of the Hon. James Harlan, Attorney-General, 
and father of Justice Harlan, now of the United 
States Supreme Court, admitted to the Bar of 
that State by the Court of Appeals, presided 
over by Chief-Justice Simpson and Judge Hise, 
afterwards United States Minister to Chili. He 
returned to New Orleans, studied in the office 
of Alfred Hennen, Esq., attending a course of 
lectures in the Law Department of the Univer- 
sity of Louisiana, under Professor Christian 
Roselius, Judge McCaleb, then United States 
District Judge in New Orleans, Hon. Randell 
Hunt and Judge Daniel Mayes, of Mississippi. 
He was admitted to the Louisiana Bar before 



the Supreme Court of that State, on exhibition 
of his diploma from the law school, in March, 
1852, but not being of age was sworn in, on the 
motion of the Hon. J. P. Benjamin, now Queen's 
Counsel in England, only in January, 1853 ; 
and at once commenced the practice of his pro- 
fession in New Orleans, in association with his 
father. In 1855 he was tendered the position 
of Judge of the Second District Court, but 
declined, the offer. Similar positions have been 
offered to him on several occasions since then, 
but he has invariably declined the honor. In 
i860 he was urged to become a candidate for 
the Constitutional Convention — known as the 
Secession Convention, and consented, on con- 
dition that no pledges should be required of him 
as to the course he should pursue in the conven- 
tion. He was elected on the co-operation 
ticket, and in the convention warmly supported 
all measures in favor of co-operation. When, 
however, the ordinance of secession was carried, 
he, in common with many other members of the 
same shade of opinion, signed it. AVhen New 
Orleans fell into the hands of the Federals he 
was pressed to take the oath of allegiance to the 
United States, but refused, and was ordered to 
leave the city. All his property was sequestered 
and placed under the control of the Freedmen's 
Bureau, and he left for Mobile, leaving his 
family in New Orleans. He entered the Con- 
federate service, but owing to an affection of the 
heart was relieved from active service and re- 
ceived direct orders of the Confederate War 
Department, doing duty as one of the post 
adjutants, and in the office of the Provost-Mar- 
shal-General, under General Dabney H. Maury, 
who was in command of the Department of the 
Gulf. He remained in Mobile until the close 
of the war, when he returned to New Orleans, 
and in May, 1S65, resumed the practice of his 
profession. On the restoration of civil govern- 
ment in Louisiana, in 1865, he was elected by 
the City Council Assistant City-Attorney, and 
intrusted with the collection of all moneys due 
to the city, and with the power of exempting 
from taxation, in proper cases, the property of 
tax-payers which had been occupied by the Fed- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



457 



eral authorities without compensation to the 
owners. Subsequently he was admitted to prac- 
tise before the Supreme Court of the United 
States, on the motion of his friend and adviser, 
Hon. John A. Campbell, ex-Associate Justice on 
that bench, and one of the great men to whom 
the country proudly points. He had previously 
received the degree of Doctor of Laws from St. 
John's College, Fordham, New York, an institu- 
tion equal in rank to the famous Catholic 
Georgetown College, and also conducted by the 
Jesuits. 

Mr. Bermudez has been for many years a 
member of the Board for the examination of 
applicants for admission to the Louisiana bar, 
and was twice Chairman of the Board, a position 
to which he was quite recently appointed by the 
present court. He has been Vice-President and 
President of the Board of School Directors of 
New Orleans, composed of twenty-four mem- 
bers, representing the entire city. He was 
attorney for the New Orleans Mutual Insurance 
Association ; the Importers' Bonded Warehouse ; 
Levy's steam cotton-press, etc. ; for the Southern 
Bank, now in liquidation ; and for many years 
for the well-known firm of A. Rochereau & Co. 

During his professional career Mr. Bermudez 
has been concerned in the settlement of large 
successions, and insolvent cases. Among the 
most important of the cases in which he was 
employed is that of The State ex rel. the South- 
ern Bank vs. The City of New Orleans, in 
which bonds to the amount of $4,000,000 were 
involved and constitutional questions arising 
under the Federal and State Constitutions of the 
highest order were raised. Mr. Bermudez rep- 
resented bond-holders aggregating $1,500,000. 
He gained the case in the lower court, and it 
was then carried to the Supreme Court of the 
State, which recognized the validity of the 
bonds and the right of the bond-holders to a 
special tax to pay the coupons and bonds, but 
the court refused to order the levy of a tax 
exclusively on real estate in the four original 
districts whieh composed the city of New Or- 
leans in 1852. The case was of such intricate 
and important a nature that Mr. Bermudez was 



employed for three days in succession in the 
argument. It has since been carried, on a writ 
of error, to the Supreme Court of the United 
States, where it is now pending. It is reported 
in 31 A. R. p. 1— 31. Another important case 
in which Mr. Bermudez has of late been engaged 
is that of The City of New Orleans vs. The South- 
ern Bank, in which the city claimed from the 
Southern Bank $800,000, with $1,200,000 as 
interest. The case was tried before a jury in the 
lower court and lost, but on an appeal to the 
Supreme Court the judgment of the lower 
court was reversed, and an absolute judgment 
rendered in favor of the Southern Bank. The 
bank was sought to be rendered liable for the 
delivery of $800,000, bonds of the city of New 
Orleans, by order of the municipal authorities, 
to the State Treasurer, representing the Board 
of Metropolitan Police, in payment of a police 
assessment. Chief-Justice Manning delivered the 
opinion, the court unanimously holding that the 
duty imposed on the bank was ministerial ; 
that the bank was under no obligation to ques- 
tion and go behind the order of the specially 
constituted municipal officers, and could not, 
therefore, be held liable for having carried out 
their order. Most important questions were 
involved in this case, which is reported in 31 
Lou. Annual, p. 560. In consequence of the 
judgment rendered against it in the lower court, 
and of the judgment by the Supreme Court in 
the bond case, the credit of the Southern Bank 
became much impaired, and its capital, which 
had been placed in city bonds, fell from par to 
thirty. The bank was therefore compelled to 
suspend, and went into insolvency in March, 
1879. A commission was appointed to wind up 
its affairs, of which General G. T. Beauregard is 
the chairman. Mr. Bermudez was retained as 
counsel for the liquidation. 

On the 20th February, 1878, the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the consecration of Pope Pius IX. as 
Bishop, the occasion received great attention 
and was celebrated with unsurpassed pomp and 
solemnity in New Orleans. Mr. Bermudez was 
one of the orators of the day, and delivered, in 
French, one of the most remarkable speeches 



43& 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ever made on the temporal power of the Pope. 
' It was published in all the local papers, and in 
many in the country, in French, English and 
German. It is said that it was also published 
in Europe in the Italian and Spanish papers. 
The following is a resume of the address : 

" The great and holy Pontiff whom Christen- 
dom has just lost is known in every part of the 
globe. His biography has been reported in a 
thousand instances; every religious paper, the 
secular press even, has appreciated the beauty 
and the grandeur of his character ; the part he 
has played in this century, which will be known 
as the era of Pius IX. It is therefore useless to 
supply additional details relating to this very 
remarkable life, to this great career, which he has 
furnished. It will be more important to enter 
into the consideration of the temporal power of 
the Popes, and to dissipate numerous prejudices, 
which exist in its regard. The telegraph has 
been informing us for several days past of all 
that is being done or all' that is to be done in 
the Conclave. We see that there are two lists 
of candidates for the Papacy — such a one is an 
ultramontane, another is a liberal. Good God ! 
Is it possible to push absurdity further? That 
which is called liberalism has been condemned 
by the solemn proclamation of the absolute 
rights of truth. In modern times the significa- 
tion of no other word in the language has been 
so perverted. And how many men in this re- 
gard, even among Catholics, who believe that 
their intentions are good, have been the dupes 
of a disastrous illusion ? When it is a question 
of purely political opinions which involve 
neither faith nor morals, be liberal ; it is your 
right, it is your duty even. The same freedom 
should exist in the domain of what man, left to 
himself, calls his religious belief. The schis- 
matic in separating himself from the church, by 
refusing to obey her laws and the powers which 
rule her, places himself under the government 
of his own will ; he can but approve in others 
the independence he arrogates to himself. The 
heretic attributes to himself the right to make a 
choice from among the store of revealed truths. 
If he enjoy the privilege of rejecting one and 



admitting another, he cannot refuse a similar 
privilege to others, under penalty of inconsis- 
tency. He has enthroned the apotheosis of in- 
dividual reason, which he would fain elevate 
above that which is divine. Liberalism must 
then exist in the domain of purely human opin- 
ions; but the term has no meaning in the do- 
main of faith. What does the telegraph mean, 
therefore, when it informs us that such or such 
a candidate to the Papacy is liberal ? It is easy 
to seize the idea of those who spread such false 
rumors ; it is meant to insinuate that a given 
candidate will adopt the doctrine of accom- 
plished facts ; that the church will resign herself 
and yield up her rights lightly. Here we are 
bordering upon a delicate question ; the cele- 
brated famous doctrine of accomplished facts has 
been greatly in vogue of late ; but it has not 
been revealed by the Holy Ghost, who proposes 
another doctrine, in direct opposition with the 
former and which reads as follows : ' Thou shalt 
neither steal nor retain thy neighbor's goods.' 
This doctrine, like truth, will remain eternal. 
From this principle, which is one of the precepts 
of the Decalogue, we can deduce many conclu- 
sions. Our neighbor's goods have been stolen — 
that is to say, a sacrilegious hand has been laid 
upon the patrimony of St. Peter, which is also 
the patrimony of many millions of human beings 
scattered over the surface of the globe. It is an 
accomplished fact, cries out the free-thinker, 
who is fond of exhibiting his profound wisdom 
and his great magnanimity so long as it is a 
question of his neighbor ; but let the same free- 
thinker fall a victim to an accident ; let a high- 
wayman snatch his purse ; with how much 
serenity of soul do you suppose he would listen 
to a judge who might pronounce sentence some- 
what in the following manner : ' Comfort your- 
self, my friend; the thief, it is true, is in 
possession of your purse ; but since it is an ac- 
complished fact, why go. in peace.' 'That is 
not a fair illustration,' however, answers our 
liberal philosopher; in such a case the judge 
would have policemen at his command, and 
they would require only a word, to enforce the 
decrees of justice. But is there then here below 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



459 



no other power, save material force? Have 
common sense and reason been completely de- 
throned? Have the opinions of two hundred 
millions of Catholics no longer any weight in 
the scale of justice ? Still, after all, will it per- 
haps be said, according to the opinion of her 
adversaries, as well as of her defenders, the 
church, although despoiled of her temporal 
power, seems to be as strong as ever. Yes, 
without doubt, to-day the church manifests her 
power in the midst of persecution. She dis- 
played it also during the first centuries, when 
she was compelled to entomb herself in the cata- 
combs. Why? because her children instead of 
sacrificing to idols allowed themselves to be 
massacred by thousands. At the present time 
the offspring of those Christian heroes consent 
to suffer outrages of all kinds rather than betray 
the voice of their conscience. It is this courage 
which makes them great, and their grandeur is 
reflected upon the church, their mother; but 
may society be said to be in its normal condi- 
tion when innocent victims are constantly fall- 
ing beneath the executioner's ax? Providence 
permits trials for the good of the elect ; an ora- 
cle emitted from divine lips tells us that there 
will be scandals ; certainly there will be scan- 
dals ; they will be accomplished facts ; but it is 
also said, woe to him who scandalizes ; certainly 
there will be persecutions, but woe to him who 
persecutes; certainly there will be spoliations — 
they too will be accomplished facts, but woe to 
the spoiler. Sooner or later the hour of justice 
will strike. When will that hour be at hand ? 
Providence only knows. One thing is certain ; 
events are following each other with fearful 
rapidity. Another thing is certain, too, as a 
profound thinker has observed, 'Man torments 
and worries himself but God manages him.' 
Another thinker, no less eminent, has said, too, 
that ' Sometimes God overthrows a whole king- 
dom to save one soul.' The Almighty sets an 
immense price upon souls. He moves heaven 
and earth to engender His elect. The preced- 
ing remarks should suffice to prove that the doc- 
trine of accomplished facts falls to the ground, 
in the presence of the doctrine contained in a 



little book called the catechism, which teaches 
us that no one has the right to appropriate to 
himself his neighbor's goods. 

" Here it may not be out of keeping to make 
a few additional remarks about the temporal 
power of the Popes. In the first place it is im- 
portant to have a clear understanding of the 
Pontifical Sovereignty. It has been said on 
another occasion that ' this Temporal Power, 
let it be well understood, is not a purely na- 
tional sovereignty ; it is the sovereignty of the 
Vicar of Jesus Christ, and the Vicar of Jesus 
Christ is the head of the only true religion, 
which is to be preached, not to one nation, but 
to all rational creatures scattered throughout 
the whole universe ; therefore such a sovereignty 
is exceptional and can never fall under the civil 
supremacy of any temporal ruler ; it is also in- 
ternational because it binds together all nations 
by the higher life of faith, charity and unity. 
For this reason the head of the church holds an 
extra-national position, and being extra-national 
He must be independent, and therefore sover- 
eign, for between independence and sovereignty 
no line can be drawn.' From the foregoing ele- 
mentary ideas it would seem that the necessity 
of the temporal power should be self-evident. 
The same reason which demands that ecclesiasti- 
cal authority and civil power should, everywhere 
else, be placed in separate keeping, absolutely 
requires that at Rome, these two powers should, 
on the contrary, be vested in the same hands. 
Is it not evident that the temporal throne of the 
Pope is the sole human guarantee of his spiritual 
independence, and that this independence can 
in turn alone guarantee our religious liberty, 
and with it all those other liberties which we 
owe to Christianity? Those revolutioners of 
our day see that very closely ; for nothing equals 
their hatred against the throne, which alone de- 
fends against every assailant, all the principles 
of Christian civilization, which they abhor. All 
enlightened Catholics and a large number of 
Protestants, too, who are in good faith, and who 
are justly alarmed by the anti-Christian socialism 
which displays itself in other ranks, understand 
this matter thoroughly. Both these classes of 



460 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



men, that is to say, the revolutioners on the one 
side, and sincere Catholics, and even conserva- 
tive Protestants, on the other side, labor un- 
ceasingly ; those to overthrow, these to maintain 
the only throne which has never compromised 
with error and evil ; and by the desperate efforts 
made by the parties in the conflict, it is easy to 
see that all, assailants and defenders, are fully 
aware that the question of the Pontifical throne 
is a question of life or death not only for old 
Europe but also for the civilization of the uni- 
verse. It is evident then that this question of 
the temporal sovereignty of the Pope offers no 
obscurity ; it is, on the contrary, its crystalline 
clearness which sets fire to the train, because, 
after all, what is the point at issue? The whole 
matter may be expressed as follows : ' Will there 
still be Christian nations, whose government, 
however secularized it may be, will be compelled 
to respect the belief and to allow that the law 
of perfect liberty be preached to the people; 
else will not this law become the exclusive 
property of some Csesars, great and small, abso- 
lute and republican, for Cassarism is to be found 
at the bottom as well as the top of society ? 
Will these Caesars have to dictate their decrees, 
ex motu proprio, or else following the advice of 
their courtiers of both sexes, will they say to 
their peoples : Here is what you must believe 
and practice under penalty of exile or the 
scaffold ? If the temporal throne of the Pope 
be given up to those who covet its possession, 
what will become of the sovereign Pontiff? He 
becomes the subject of that government which 
has dethroned him, or of any other which may 
• offer him asylum. Occupying such a position, 
would his liberty be full and unabridged ? A 
miracle would be required to render this possi- 
ble ; it would be necessary that the protecting 
government should throw no obstacle in the way 
of his administration, should promulgate no law 
contrary to the laws of the church. That would 
indeed be a miracle ; and we know it did not 
happen in Italy during the past few years. Still 
let us suppose an impossibility — that such a mir- 
acle has occurred : there would remain another 
difficulty, and to keep Catholic unity together, 



a miracle greater even than the former one 
would now be required. It would be necessary 
to grave in the minds of all Catholics and of 
their rulers, a deep-seated unmovable conviction 
as to the complete independence of the Pope. 
Governments are already so suspicious of the 
actions of the Pontiff King, whom their legisla- 
tors call a ' foreign sovereign ' — they are so jeal- 
ous of taking a part themselves in the adminis- 
tration of public worship throughout their 
dominions, that it would require but very little 
to cause them to suspect that the protecting 
power had directly or indirectly brought influ- 
ences to bear upon the decisions of the Pontifi- 
cal court. All this would suppose too complete 
a departure from the laws of moral order ; it 
would be a permanent miracle which we have 
no right to expect. What then would happen ? 
Each government would go on enlarging the 
circle of its interference in the administration 
of public worship, until the Pope would no 
longer be allowed to intervene seriously, because 
he would be considered the instrument of a rival 
government ; his protests would be seized at the 
frontier, and, after a few years, instead of the 
Catholic Church, there would be a certain num- 
ber of national official churches, and the reli- 
gion which of old emancipated Europe would 
become a servile instrument in the hands of an 
uncontrolled despotism. 

" The foregoing arguments may be briefly re- 
capitulated as follows : In the first place, the 
temporal sovereignty, the most ancient and the 
most august in the world, has been confiscated 
for the benefit of the revolution. By what right 
is this confiscation maintained, in defiance of all 
law, divine and human ? By the same right 
which the thief arrogates to himself when, grasp- 
ing his victim, he cries out, ' Your purse or your 
life.' Such an accomplished fact will never be 
sanctioned by eternal justice no more than the 
murder of the just Abel, whose innocent blood 
cries out unceasingly for vengeance. In the 
second place, it requires no demonstration to 
prove that the temporal power can alone secure 
in the Sovereign Pontiff that independence 
which .is necessary to him in the exercise of his 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH, 



461 



supreme charge : the arguments in support of 
this thesis are exhaustive, they are crushing, to 
the free-thinker especially, who is not so weak- 
minded as to believe in a miracle, the existence 
of which, however, he would be compelled to 
admit, if he were to suppose that the Pope could 
enjoy complete independence and be, at the 
same time, the subject of any government what- 
soever. On this point we are fortified by the 
confession of the great general of modern times, 
whose perceptions were so clear when they were 
not blinded by colossal ambition. ' The Pope,' 
said he, with characteristic precision, 'the Pope 
must be neither at Madrid nor at Vienna, nor at 
Paris; his place is at Rome.' As a matter of 
course he meant Rome before the Vatican had 
been transformed into a prison. 

"From all that has been said, is it necessary 
to waste time in. refuting the magniloquent 
theories of the would-be illustrious proposers of 
compromise? People may answer, We under- 
stand the Pope, in order to maintain his dignity 
and the freedom of his relations with the gov- 
ernments of the world, should be subject to none 
of them; but if he be given guarantees that he 
will be inviolable, ought he to complain ? All 
those who have not forgotten what has taken 
place at Rome during the last few years, will not 
deem a reply to this question urgent ; it will 
only be necessary to recall some of the measures 
taken to confiscate the property of the clergy; 
the hideous language made use of by certain 
demagogues in the Italian Parliament may also 
be alluded to; the sans-coulottes of '93 could 
not have howled with greater fury; they would 
certainly, be glad to embrace tenderly those 
whom they found to be their worthy brethren 
and disciples. Who is there that in the pres- 
ence of such disgusting orgies would still dare 
even to name the celebrated 'Law of guaran- 
tees'! He who was the head of the usurping 
government has already appeared before his 
Judge. Concerning him we will be silent, imi- 
tating the generous magnanimity of the common 
Father of the faithful, who prayed for his de- 
spoiler. It must be admitted, too, that the 
unfortunate monarch, who was popularly called 



'11 Re Galantuomo,' had not entirely lost the 
recollection of the traditions of his family; a 
smouldering spark of faith must occasionally 
have made him deplore the excesses caused by 
his ambition and the revolutionary whirlwind. 
Dees that spark glow in the heart of the present 
king? We would fain believe it, but the gen- 
eral belief is to the contrary, which in truth has 
not been lessened since the accession of the new 
sovereign. His father's heart had scarcely ceased 
to pulsate ere the death was published to the 
universe; still the name of God does not even 
make its appearance in the first public document 
of the successor. There are very few govern- 
ments whose rulers would dare make an omission 
of this kind, under such solemn circumstances. 
Did they neglect alluding to Providence, they 
would dread being found wanting in respect to 
what is a matter of universal belief. 

"The foregoing digression has, however, car- 
ried us away from the question at issue, and 
which is simply this : Is any compromise possi- 
ble between the Papacy and the Revolution ? 
From what precedes it is evident that the answer 
can only be negative. What, then, is to be 
done? We must continue to protest, until the 
hour fixed by God shall have struck ; until then, 
doubtless, trials may be severe. Catholics will 
have the sorrow of seeing the common Father 
abandoned to the most shameful outrages, per- 
haps even may he be forced into exile; but the 
Pope will be followed into exile by the homage 
greater than ever of all his children, and of all 
who know how to appreciate all the grandeur 
of suffering for justice's sake; such a spectacle 
would be less painful than to see the common 
Father of the faithful laying down himself his 
triple crown at the feet of a government of ad- 
venturers. Such a degradation of the Papacy 
has never, been witnessed, it never will be : for 
its mission is to incite all nations to emancipate 
themselves from human servitude by their sub- 
mission to the law of perfect liberty. Thus the 
Pope, by refusing to consent to his own de- 
thronement, saves those even who thought to 
save him, by advising him to sacrifice his crown 
to the revolutionary Moloch. He restores hope 



462 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



to those whose minds have reason to be alarmed 
at the general weakening of authority. He 
points out to those who were blinded the only 
power capable of presiding over the preservation 
of Christian liberty and civilization, and of re- 
building their ruins, if they be momentarily 
destined to shipwreck. Yes, the Papacy alone 
can heal modern society, because alone it can 
apply the remedy to the evil. The great mis- 
fortune of governments at the present time is 
that they completely forget, at least in practice, 
the fact that Providence watches over human 
destinies. What happens then ? Man sees him- 
self only, and lives for himself only. All thought 
of responsibility disappearing, it is not aston- 
ishing that excitement should be continual, for 
each one strives to supplant his neighbor. The 
absolutism which to-day says, 'The State, it is 
myself,' will be overthrown to-morrow by the 
underhand plotting of the middle classes, which 
will say to the nation, 'We are elected by 
you;' and as the revolution is fated to devour 
its authors, the new masters will be replaced by 
others who will arise from the recent social 
strata. They in turn will cry out, ' Down with 
the reactionists,' who strive to hinder the on- 
ward progress of the revolutionary car which 
they have set in motion. Thus it is that the 
street democracy will enjoy its ephemeral tri- 
umph, under the rule of an executioner, who 
will also say, in his turn, ' Order and liberty, 
they are myself! woe to whomsoever doubts it.' 
There communism shows itself at work ; such is 
the inevitable consequence of the complete for- 
getfulness of religious ideas in governmental 
spheres. A celebrated socialist of our era said 
as much to statesmen: 'According to you,' said 
he, ' there is no longer a church ; you have 
taught me that Christ is a dream. I do not 
know if there be a God; but I do know that 
those who made the laws do not believe much 
in Him, and that they wrote their laws as if they 
did not believe in Him at all. Therefore I want 
my share of land. You have reduced everything 
down to gold and dung; I want that gold and 
that dung. You have not left a paradise for me 
in heaven; I want my paradise upon earth.' 



This is the fatal consequence which must be 
drawn from modern politics. God has been 
dethroned; man, with his egotism, will take his 
place; he may well curb the brow, which brutal 
force will impose upon him ; in mournful silence 
he will await his turn to make himself of the 
same force. Thus, can there be any astonish- 
ment that society should find itself in a condi- 
tion of personal anarchy ? Where is to be found 
the remedy of so many evils? In a return to 
those principles which modern nations have 
abandoned ; in the practical knowledge of those 
first truths of Christianity, the deposit of which 
has been confided to the church, whose infallible 
head is the Pope. The first of these truths is 
thus conceived : there is but one God, the 
Creator, the Legislator and Sovereign Lord of 
all beings, especially of man, whom He has 
placed at the head of creation. It is He who 
has brought forth from one couple, formed by 
His hands, the high and the low, kings and 
subjects, loving all alike. Such is the first article 
of the Evangelical charter; it alone can establish 
among men the reign of true equality, frater- 
nity, liberty; these three words have no mean- 
ing in the mouth of those who hold that the 
origin of the human race is uncertain, and es- 
pecially in the mouth of those who have the 
impudence to show us that origin in the shell of 
the oyster, or the hide of the ourang-outang. 

"Anti-Christian liberalism has seized upon 
these three magic words in order to lead multi- 
tudes astray and excite them to the bloody 
orgies of an uncontrolled despotism. The Chris- 
tian principle alone, interpreted by Him who 
occupies the place of Jesus Christ on earth — 
this principle alone will be able to bring order 
out of the chaos of modern ideas. According 
to this principle, civil power is a divine com- 
mission, but very honorable, doubtless, but also 
very enslaving. He who acts under this com- 
mission is elevated above all others, but he must 
also watch over the interests of all ; his authority 
must be respected, otherwise he could not fulfil 
his mission, which consists in maintaining order 
and tranquillity throughout the limits of his 
jurisdiction.; and in doing this he must intimi- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



463 



date those who wish evil, and protect in all the 
freedom of doing what is right, which freedom 
is the only one recognized by the Gospel. This 
order, this tranquillity, this evil, this good — all 
these are not words whose interpretation the 
church of Jesus Christ leaves to those in power ; 
she defines them clearly for a conscience which 
does not wish to be blinded. She declares that 
the rights of rulers are sacred ; but she declares 
that their duties are just as inviolable, and she 
is not sparing in the most terrible menaces if, 
unmindful of the obligations of their trust, they 
seek power merely to obtain the liberty of enjoy- 
ment. Such are the general principles which 
the church has received the mission of making 
known to nations as well as to their sovereigns, 
to rulers as well as to the governed ; and if these 
principles be correctly applied, the double dan- 
ger of anarchy and despotism is averted. In 
matters of detail the church is silent ; whether 
universal or limited suffrage be adopted, or any 
other measure be taken to insure the transmis- 
sion of power, everything will be approved, 
provided fundamental principles are respected. 
Political constitutions will be good when they 
will no longer be the work either of assemblies 
incapable of knowing what they are about, or 
of ambitious men who know only too well what 
it is incumbent on them to do for their own 
self-interest. Good sense and. true patriotism 
must attend to details in the information of an 
electoral system as simple as it is worthy of a 
free people. The church has received for her 
mission the promulgation of the general prin- 
ciples of the origin of power; this expression, 
power or right divine, provokes a disdainful 
smile to show itself upon the lips of the pre- 
tendedly strong-minded ; still, they cannot deny 
that power comes from God, whatever may be 
its mode of transmission. They cannot deny 
that Jesus Christ has laid down laws which were 
destined to adapt themselves to all the relations 
of human life ; these laws were to be obligatory 
for the monarch as well as for the subject, for 
the ruler as well as for the governed. If Jesus 
Christ has left a law for the world, is it not evi- 
dent that he must have left it in the keeping, of 



some one? He has left a government and a 
head to represent Himself; this representative, 
who is the Pope, must be able, in all freedom, 
to give the instructions necessary for the good 
of the universe ; for this reason must He be in- 
dependent and, therefore, sovereign. Catholics, 
scattered throughout the five parts of the globe, 
can consent to see above the Pope none but the 
Divine Spirit, promised by Him whose Vicar 
upon earth is the sovereign Pontiff. 

"Before concluding, it is important to de- 
velop an idea which has been cursorily pointed 
out. We have said that the temporal power is 
necessary to the Papacy for the preservation of 
Catholic unity ; if the sovereign Pontiff be the 
subject of any government, whatsoever his deci- 
sions, they will not be accepted by other States. 
Why? It has been shown that in such event 
his decisions would be considered as having been 
dictated under the influence, more or less direct, 
of a rival nation. But it will be said, for nearly 
eight years the Pope has been despoiled of his 
temporal sovereignty and still the universe sub- 
mits to his laws. Yes, but the Pope has not ab- 
dicated his crown ; he is still king de jure, 
although captive de facto. Human malice may 
shackle his liberty for a time, but in protesting 
against injustice he continues to be king. His 
throne may be at Savona, at Fontainebleau, at 
Gaeta, or in the Mamertine prison even. Was 
not the throne of the Master established for a 
time in the pragtorium of Pilate, and on Cal- 
vary's mount? Catholic unity, therefore, runs 
not the slightest risk of being compromised in 
the present situation of the Papacy. But the 
case would be different if, instead of remaining 
captive in his own dominions, the Papacy were 
to abdicate its independence by a compromise ; 
then each State would have its national church, 
that unity which is the most essential character- 
istic of Christian society would disappear ; there 
would spring up as many Popes as there would 
be heads of governments. It is evident, there- 
fore, that the temporal sovereignty is indispensa- 
ble to the Vicar of Jesus Christ in order to pre- 
serve Catholic unity; in order to enable him to 
preach the law of perfect liberty to the univer- 



464 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



sality of nations, of families, and of individuals, 
in spite of all despotisms, in spite of the Mosco- 
vite despotism, which tells him, 'Go perish 
miserably amidst the frozen regions of Siberia;' 
in spite of the Prussian despotism, which would 
fain compel him to kneel at the feet of the State 
God ; in spite of the Asiatic despotism, which 
says to him, ' I will have you butchered by my 
executioners ; ' in spite of the revolutionary 
despotism which cries out to him, ' Die, for it is 
thou who preventest me from devouring the 
masses in peace, in the name of liberty.' When 
the Papacy will enjoy full and entire independ- 
ence, it will exercise its beneficent influences 
on all classes of society ; then will a marvellous 
revolution be seen to come over the forces which 
at present are conspiring to extirpate by fire 
and sword the remaining vestiges of Christian 
civilization. Whence arises that incredible fever 
for destruction which ferments among popular 
masses? It proceeds from despair of ever 
obtaining anything but cruel disappointment 
from that society calling itself liberal, which, 
for nearly a century already, during which it 
has gone on from revolution to revolution, has 
not ceased to give exactly the reverse of what 
it promised in equality, in fortune, and in enjoy- 
ment, constantly becoming more marked, in 
lieu of that equality so often promised. And, 
instead of universal brotherhood, wars as deadly 
as they are costly and barren, ushering in their 
wake at the present time, preparations for a war 
of extermination. The motto of the Pope just 
deceased was as follows : ' Crux de cruce.' The 
prophecy has been literally fulfilled. Heaven 
grant that we may be allowed to witness the 
realization of that of the Sovereign Pontiff, 
whose advent the church impatiently awaits, 
and whom the Holy Ghost will assuredly grant 
her speedily, ' lumen de ccelo.' " 

Mr. Bermudez commenced life with but slen- 
der means, and has, by his own unaided exer- 
tions, accumulated a handsome independence, 
never owing a debt. His intellect matured 
and developed by the Jesuit fathers, who as 
mind-trainers have no equals, he began his 
career peculiarly fitted by his training and tem- 



perament for the profession of the law. There 
is no short road to eminence in that arduous 
profession, and the fruition of its honors and 
rewards is the result only of constant applica- 
tion. Earnest and intense study, aided by bril- 
liant talents, and an unusually keen insight into 
the complex and intricate motives which govern 
the human mind, enabled him rapidly to achieve 
high distinction in that science which adjusts 
the rights and remedies the wrongs of society. 
As a civilian — in contradistinction to a common 
lawyer — he has but few equals and no superior 
in Louisiana. Thoroughly familiar with the 
ancient Roman and modern French law, from 
which the civil law of Louisiana derives, his 
practice has been mainly in the civil branch of 
his profession, and it is pre-eminently as a 
"civilian" that he has attained to such emi- 
nence in the legal world of Louisiana, although 
he has also had lengthened experience in com- 
mercial law. His acknowledged main charac- 
teristics are prompt perceptive faculties, and 
strong analytical powers, which enable him in 
complicated cases at once to grasp and master 
the subject in its entirety and significant details, 
and instantly to determine the most effective 
means for attacking or defending. As an advo- 
cate, he is clear, learned, concise, logical, terse, 
forcible, convincing; as a speaker, he is digni- 
fied, chaste, impressive, unyielding; as an orator, 
he is brilliant, ardent, sincere, persuasive, almost 
fascinating, controls and sways. No one can 
listen to him without great interest and pleasure, 
without feeling for him and with him, to the 
full extent of his own earnest convictions. His 
practice is largely among the old Creole popula- 
tion of New Orleans and Louisiana, from whom 
he is himself descended. He has sat several 
times as a Special Judge in recused cases, and it 
is generally understood that the highest position 
in the judiciary of his native State will be his 
if he chooses to accept it. Among those who 
have studied law in his office may be mentioned 
gentlemen of distinction at the bar, such as 
Associate-Justice White, of the Supreme Court 
of Louisiana, son of Governor E. D. White, of 
that State ; Charles F. Claiborne, a very tal- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



465 



ented and learned member of the Louisiana bar, 
and grandson of Governor Claiborne, the first 
Governor of the Territory of Orleans and of the 
Territory of Louisiana; and Charles Louque, the 
author of the last Digest of the Supreme Court 
decisions of Louisiana. 

An accomplished scholar and linguist, he 
speaks Spanish, French, and English fluently, 
and even Latin. Self-reliant in the conscious- 
ness of his great abilities and fertile in resources, 
the comprehensive grasp of his mind makes him 
the master of every situation. High-minded 
and conscientious, of scrupulous honor and spot- 
less integrity, he possesses a dignity of character 
and suavity of manner which stamp him, par 
excellence, as a representative of the best ele- 
ments of the old Creole race. 

Mr. Bermudez is fond of travelling in the old 
world, and has made no less than seven trips to 
Europe, where he generally passes the summer 
months resting from winter toils, and visiting at 
different times all the historic points of interest 
on the continent — Paris, Rome, Marseilles, Bor- 
deaux, Venice, Naples, Vesuvius, and the ruins 
of Pompeii, where he was present while the 
excavations were in progress. On a visit to 
Rome, in 1870, he had a private audience with 
the late Pope Pius IX. , by whom he was created 
a Knight of the Order of Pius IX., the only 
member of that order in America; a signal 
honor of which he considers himself wholly un- 
worthy. When in Europe, Mr. Bermudez and 
his family were on terms of personal intimacy 
with the ex-Queen Isabella of Spain, and with 
King Alphonsus and his sisters, the Infantas 
Pilar, Paz, and Eulalia, with whom his eldest 
daughter, Alzire Bermudez, completed her edu- 
cation at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, at 
Paris, where numbers of children of the nobility 
finish their studies. At the instance of King 
Alphonsus, Mr. Bermudez on one occasion ex- 
plained to him the concurrent working of the 
Federal and State governments in this country. 

Mr. Bermudez was married in June, 1853, to 
Miss Amanda de Maupassant, a lady of French 
descent, and has five children living. His 
eldest son, Edward J. Bermudez, studied law 




at Columbia College, New York, under Pro- 
fessor Dwight, and was admitted to the bar of 
that State, and after admission to the Louisiana 
bar is now practising law in New Orleans. 

REV. W. H. RUFFNER. 

Virginia. 

ILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER was born 
in the year 1824, at Lexington, Va. 
He is a son of the Rev. Dr. Henry 
\p„fi§ Ruffner, the founder of the Presbyterian 
Church at Charleston, W. Va., Presi- 
dent of Washington College, Lexington, and 
author of numerous well-known theological 
works. He was educated at Washington Col- 
lege, from which he graduated in 1842, but 
remained as resident graduate a year longer. 
From- 1843 to I S45 he employed himself in the 
manufacture of salt on his father's estate n£ar 
Charleston, Kanawha county. He next devoted 
a year to the study of theology at the Union 
Theological Seminary, Hampden-Sidney, Va., 
and another at the Princeton Seminary, New 
Jersey. From 1S49 t0 I SS I he was Chaplain 
of the University of Virginia ; and from the 
latter year to 1853, Pastor of the Seventh Pres- 
byterian Church in Philadelphia. While filling 
this pastorate he published a work entitled 
" Charity and the Clergy," which appeared as 
a part of what was known as the " New Themes " 
controversy, which freely criticised the practice 
of the church and its clergy and led to warm dis- 
cussion. Returning to Virginia on account of 
his failing health, he engaged in farming, preach- 
ing only at times, but writing a good deal, if 
not as much as ever. It is as a writer, indeed, 
that he is chiefly known outside of his State and 
church. He was a leading contributor to Dr. 
Stuart Robinson's Presbyterian Critic in its day, 
and has written much and admirably on social 
and theological subjects in other publications. 
The subject that perhaps has called forth the 
finest efforts of his pen, however, is public edu- 
cation, which he has ably served not with pen 
alone. Of this Virginians at least do not need 
to be told. Before the war Virginia had no 



466 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



efficient public school system. After the war 
the State Convention which assembled in 1867- 
68 under the Reconstruction Acts, framed a 
constitution that provided for a general system 
of public schools, to be supported by taxation, 
State and local, supplemented by the interest on 
the literary fund. The first Legislature that 
met after the adoption of the constitution gave 
effect to this constitutional provision by electing 
him, in 1S70, as the first Superintendent of 
Public Instruction in the Old Dominion. The 
words gave effect are used here advisedly, for 
in electing him the Legislature virtually exe- 
cuted the whole provision, since he at once 
shouldered the work and carried it through. 
Within thirty days after his election he sub- 
mitted to the Legislature a complete school 
law, which is still the school law of the. State, 
and one of the best in the Union ; and, on the 
passage of the law, proceeded without delay to 
organize the school system under it, proceeding 
with such energy and ability that at the end of 
the first year, 1870-71, he reported one hundred 
and fifty-seven thousand children (white and 
colored) in the public schools, an increase of 
nearly one hundred thousand over the attend- 
ance of the year before, the enrolment of whites 
being more than doubled, while that of the col- 
ored pupils was quadrupled. And the schools 
have ever since steadily improved, and steadily 
increased in attendance until, in 1877, the 
whole number of pupils enrolled amounted to 
two hundred and five thousand, exclusive of 
some twenty-five thousand in private schools. 
Such being the fruits of his administration, it is 
scarcely necessary to say that at the expiration 
of his term of office in 1S74 he was re-elected 
for another term of four years ; so that he is at 
this writing still at the head of the public schools 
of Virginia. It was fortunate, indeed, for the 
proud old commonwealth that the organization 
of her school system fell into his hands. The 
task involved an immense amount of work, in a 
sparsely settled country, with small means, and 
against strong prejudice on the part of the old 
land-holders; and, furthermore, was compli- 
cated with the difficult question of the two races. 



It is almost certain that the administration of 
the system in the hands of any other man likely 
to have been selected would have been a lament- 
able failure, as it has been in some of the South- 
ern States ; for the whole subject was new to the 
people, and there were few men in the State of 
high administrative ability who at the same time 
were thoroughly acquainted with the science of 
education, and exactly fitted by nature for the 
work, as he unquestionably is. Under the em- 
barrassing conditions imposed by the situation, 
and in the face of all obstacles, he has estab- 
lished the system on a firm foundation ; and, 
though opposition still exists, and murmurs are 
still heard, there is no feature of the State gov- 
ernment now more strongly rooted in the affec- 
tions of the people of Virginia than the public 
schools. Meanwhile, his literary powers, as 
already implied, have efficiently seconded his 
administrative powers, his official reports being 
among the ablest of the kind that have appeared 
in this country. In addition to these, he has 
from time to time published a number of papers 
on the subject of public education in the col- 
umns of the Virginia press or in pamphlet form, 
of which the most notable, perhaps, is a series 
of letters, appearing originally in the Richmond 
papers and the Educational Journal of Virginia, 
in reply to an attack on the public free school 
system by the Rev. Dr. R. L. Dabney, of the 
Union Theological Seminary. The letters of 
this series have been republished in a collected 
form, and present one of the most convincing 
and triumphant defences of State education ever 
made in our own or any other country. Upon 
the whole, he must be acknowledged to stand 
in the front rank of the public educators of 
his time. 

Dr. J. G. BELDEN. 

- _ v Louisiana. 

(£>S?f AMES GRIDLEY BELDEN was born, 

"^T September 22c!, 1822, at Moscow, N. Y. 

GsZl) The Belden family is of English de- 

jwp scent, their ancestors having emigrated 

to this country about the year 1640, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



467 



and settled in Hartford, Conn. John Belden, 
the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was 
an officer in the Revolutionary war. Ebenezer 
Belden, his son, who was born in Hartford, 
Conn., removed to New York city, where he 
formed a partnership with his maternal uncle, 
Noah Webster, LL. D., the great lexicographer, 
as publishers of the numerous educational works 
written by the latter, and proprietors of the 
New York Spectator and Advertiser, one of the 
earliest journals issued in the Empire City. He 
had also large shipping interests, but meeting 
with severe losses., sold out his interest in the 
publishing house, and removed to western New 
York, where he married Jane Whitall, a mem- 
ber of an old and wealthy Quaker family whose 
ancestors came over with William Penn and 
settled at Red Bank near Philadelphia. His 
sister was the wife of Dr. West, of the United 
States army. After his marriage, Ebenezer 
entered into an extensive mercantile business, 
trading largely with the Indians, then in con- 
siderable numbers in that State, and established 
a branch store at Queenstown, Canada. He 
owned five different stores, and at one time was 
the most extensive trader in that section of the 
country. On the breaking out of the war of 
1 81 2 he was residing in Canada, but though 
opposed to the war, and strongly urged by the 
British officers, among whom he was a great 
favorite, to take the oath of allegiance to the 
British crown, he declined to forsake his native 
country in time of war, and at great pecuniary 
sacrifice abandoned his store in Canada. He 
was so universally popular among the Canadians 
that it is said he was promised the Governor- 
Generalship, if he would consent to become a 
British subject. The sudden close of the war, 
and the great losses he had sustained in Canada, 
threw his affairs into such confusion that he had 
almost to commence life anew. He set himself 
vigorously to work, however, to recuperate his 
losses, and had just entered on a fresh career of 
prosperity when he died, in 1827, at Batavia, 
N. Y., leaving five children, four of whom were 
sons. Of these the Rev. William W. Belden 
is now a Presbyterian minister at Gloversville, 



N. Y. ; while John Whitall Belden, the eldest, 
and Joseph W. Belden, the youngest son, are in 
California. One of Dr. J. G. Belden's cousins 
was the wife of Governor Ellsworth, of Connecti- 
cut, who was the son of Chief-Justice Ellsworth ; 
and another, Dr. Pinckney W. Ellsworth, is now 
one of the leading surgeons in Hartford, Conn. 

James G. Belden, who was but five years of 
age when his father died, received his primary 
education in the public schools of New York 
and Hartford, Conn., and then spent two years 
at the Westfield Academy, Westfield, Mass. He 
took a partial course at Harvard University, and 
attended lectures in the Medical Department of 
that college. He studied medicine under Dr. 
Winslow Lewis, of Boston, for twelve months, 
and as a student attended the Massachusetts 
Hospital. He afterwards spent two years in the 
office of Dr. G. M. Taft, of Hartford, Conn., 
and then went to New York, where he entered 
the medical school of Dr. John A. Whittaker, an 
Irish physician, who at that time had 175 
students in preparation for college. He then 
attended a course of lectures at the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons of the University of 
New York, from whence he graduated M. D. in 
March, 1846. In the fall of that year he went 
to Mobile, Ala., where he commenced the prac- 
tice of medicine, and after a year's residence 
removed in October, 1847, to New Orleans. 

After graduation his attention had been 
drawn to Homoeopathy by observing the suc- 
cessful result's it had achieved in the fami- 
lies of some of his intimate friends. Having 
studied the subject exhaustively, and instituted 
some searching experiments, he commenced 
its practice, satisfied that, properly applied, it 
was a vast improvement in the art of healing. 
When Dr. Belden commenced the practice of 
Homoeopathy there were probably not more than 
100 physicians of that school in the United 
States ; they now number over 5,000. 

Homoeopathy — derived from two Greek words 
signifying similar affection — is applied to that 
practice in which the group of symptoms pro- 
ducible by the medicine is similar to that pre- 
sented by the disease. It is based upon the 



468 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



obvious property of diseases, and the obvious 
property of drugs, and ascertains by observation 
alone the curative relation between these two 
classes of properties. A class of facts obtained 
from healthy persons expresses the morbific 
properties of each article of the Homoeopathic 
materia medica ; another class of facts obtained 
from the sick expresses the therapeutic proper- 
ties of the same agents ; a comparison of the two 
classes establishes as a universal law similia simil- 
ibus curantur (like are cured by like). Again, 
the facts of each individual case of disease 
determine the remedy to be selected in accord- 
ance with this law. The three grand doctrines 
of Homoeopathy are : first, the law similia simil- 
ibus curantur — medicines relieve affections sim- 
ilar to those which they are capable of pro- 
ducing ; secondly, the doctrine of dose — small 
doses are most safe and efficacious ; thirdly, the 
doctrine of fotence — medicines are peculiarly 
powerful after being subjected to sufficient 
friction or succussion with a suitable quantity 
of some inert substance. Hahnemann's small 
doses operate, first, because they act directly on 
the disordered parts ; secondly, because they 
act in the right direction ; thirdly, because 
disease renders the parts peculiarly sensitive to 
the appropriate medicines; and, fourthly, be- 
cause the power of the medicine is exalted by a 
peculiar mode of preparation. The great thera- 
peutic power and value of their preparations 
denominated potentized medicines the Homoeo- 
paths claim to consist in the superior intensity 
of their power of acting Homceopathically, i. c, 
like the disease. This is caused by Hahnemann's 
process of unparalleled comminution, which 
develops latent medicinal power in the interior 
of a group of molecules; at the surface only is it 
free and active: by division the interior becomes 
surface, the latent becomes active. In any med- 
icine so prepared as to admit of administration 
in the minutest doses, the process of reducing 
the dose has necessarily effected such a physical 
change in the drug, as to augment its curative 
power to an extent incredible to all who have 
not experienced or observed its effects in med- 
ical practice. The Homoeopathic physician, 



before he can be recognized as such, is requiied 
to possess as thorough knowledge of every 
branch of medical science as the most respect- 
able portion of his Allopathic brethren, and has 
gone through a regular course of Allopathic 
study under Allopathic professors, and has been 
declared duly qualified to practise medicine by 
Allopathic boards of examiners. The advocates 
of the doctrine claim that every physician 
who has fairly, fully, and practically examined 
Homoeopathy has adopted it, and that as a sys- 
tem it is inferior to none of the physical sciences 
in the strictness of the investigations on which it 
is founded, and the extent of the benefits it is 
destined to confer on mankind. 

Although an entire stranger to New Orleans, 
without friends, and without recourse to adver- 
tising, Dr. Belden soon gathered round him one 
of the largest and most lucrative practices in the 
" Crescent City." He was always a strong sup- 
porter of theUnion, and opposed secession in any 
form, but he was an advocate for negro slavery 
because he was satisfied from reading, observa- 
tion and personal experience that the African was 
intellectually, morally and physically, a better 
bsing under the system of American domestic 
slavery than he ever had been in his native 
country. As early as 1856, in the Presidential 
campaign which resulted in the election of Pres- 
ident Buchanan, he had ample opportunity for 
observing the intense excitement that prevailed in 
the South against theadvocates of abolition, while 
on visiting the North he found a corresponding 
intolerance of the defenders of slavery. When 
stopping at one of the hotels in the State of New 
York, he was asked by the proprietor, who 
knew that he was from the South, whether he 
owned any slaves ; and upon being answered in 
the affirmative, the hotel- keeper threatened to 
thrash him, saying he would have no man who 
practised or advocated slavery in his house. 

After the election of President Buchanan, this 
feverish excitement subsided only to be renewed 
with tenfold vehemence in 1S60. Dr. Belden 
was opposed to secession because he foresaw its 
failure, and partly because he desired to preserve 
the institution of domestic slavery for the nm- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



469 



tual advantage of slave and master. He did not 
consider the institution, by any means, a perfect 
one, but thought that reforming some of its ad- 
mitted evils was more likely to preserve it than 
going to war in its defence. From the first he 
perceived that a system founded on human bond- 
age was bound to encounter the opposition of the 
civilized world, whenever the issue was made. 

Like a man with a faulty title to an es- 
tate, so long as the case was not brought into 
court, no question could be raised, but whenever 
it came to be argued on its merits, the decision 
was sure to be against it. When the first gun 
was fired at Fort Sumter, he remarked: "That 
is the death-knell of slavery ! " From his birth, 
education and frequent travels through the 
Northern and Eastern States, he thoroughly un- 
derstood the nature, spirit, genius and power of 
the Northern people, and was satisfied from the 
outset that in a contest between ■ the two sec- 
tions, the South was bound to fail. He regarded 
warfare as largely a mechanical science, and, 
therefore, that whichever side possessed the most 
efficient machinery would be sure to prove the 
victor in the end. He clearly perceived, how- 
ever, that neither side appreciated the gravity 
of the contest in which they were about to em- 
bark, and while he smiled at the inadequacy of 
the 75,000 men called for by President Lincoln, 
which in his judgment should have been 300,- 
000, he ridiculed the inefficiency of the loan of 
$15,000,000 called for by Rresident Davis. 
The latter he considered a far-seeing statesman, 
properly appreciating the situation, should have 
made $200,000,000, a sum equally easily raised. 
With that sum, 500,000 men could have been 
raised and stationed in Kentucky and Maryland, 
and an efficient navy purchased in Europe, with 
ample munitions of war. By such energetic 
measures only could the South in his judgment 
have any prospect of success. Dr. Belden took 
no part in the war, but attended the Confederate 
and Federal soldiers alike, from motives of hu- 
manity, whenever he was brought in contact 
with either. In 1862, when New Orleans fell 
into the hands of the Federals, he gave up for a 
time the practice of his profession, and operated 



largely in mercantile transactions, mainly in cot- 
ton and sugar. 

In 1S64, on the reorganization of the State 
government of Louisiana by the Federal author- 
ities, he was elected, with but little opposition, 
State Treasurer for the term of two years. In 
addition to holding that office, he was Receiver 
of the Land Office and a member of the Board 
of Currency, of which, in consequence of the 
absence of the President, he had practically the 
control. He was afterwards urged to accept 
the Executive chair of the State, but declined. 
This is the only occasion in his life in which he 
has had any official connection with politics, 
from which he has studiously -held aloof ever 
since. In 1866, having in his later operations 
sustained heavy losses, he retired from his mer- 
cantile business and resumed the practice of his 
profession, to which he has devoted himself ever 
since. He took no part in the political turmoils 
that rent Louisiana in twain from the days of 
Reconstruction to the recognition of the Nicholls 
Government by President Flayes in 1S77, be- 
lieving that there was a peaceful way of righting 
the wrongs the people were suffering under from 
their profligate carpet-bag rulers. He has sel- 
dom taken the trouble to vote, but when doing 
so, has always voted the Democratic ticket, be- 
cause he could not support the unprincipled 
adventurers who claimed to represent the Re- 
publican party. 

In 1878, after an unusually warm, wet spring, 
in the heat of a summer month, yellow fever 
appeared in New Orleans. Assuming at the 
very outset a very malignant type, spreading 
rapidly and attacking a class of residents — the 
Creole citizens — who had heretofore believed 
themselves exempt from its influences ; such re- 
sults, with that of its virulence among children, 
caused a greater panic than was ever produced 
by any former epidemic in the Crescent City. 
Long general depression of business, preceding 
that usually prevailing during the summer 
months, found many thousands of families badly 
prepared to provide all the concomitants indis- 
pensable in contending with so distressing and 
devastating an enemy. In August, in conse- 



47° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



quen'ce of the great success that had attended 
the Homoeopathic treatment of the disease, re- 
peated and urgent calls, both from the city and 
adjacent districts, to which the fever was rapidly 
spreading, were made upon Homoeopathic phy- 
sicians of known liberality, and upon prominent 
friends of the practice, for medical aid and as- 
sistance in treating the fever Homceopathically. 
This assistance most of the applicants were to- 
tally unable to pay for, and it was impossible for 
them to obtain it by application to any then 
known Charitable Association. It was accord- 
ingly determined to organize the New Orleans 
Homoeopathic Relief Association — consisting of 
the local physicians and numerous laymen of 
that practice — of which Dr. James G. Belden 
was chosen President. On the first of Septem- 
ber, when the fever was near its highest point of 
prevalence, an appeal was addressed to the 
friends of the practice abroad, and to the public 
generally, for funds to carry on the work. By 
the generous benevolence of Northern sympathi- 
zers, money, medicines, food, delicacies and 
clothing were promptly supplied, thus enabling 
the Association to render not alone medical aid 
and care, but also to extend material relief and 
comfort to many distressed applicants. Calls 
for medical and material aid poured in from all 
parts of the city, and from Dry Grove, Canton, 
McComb City, Tangipahoa, Bay St. Louis, 
Cheniere Caminada, and numbers of other towns, 
hamlets and villages in the interior fever dis- 
tricts. To meet those from the interior, a corps 
of Homoeopathic laymen, more or less conversant 
with the treatment of yellow fever, was organ- 
ized, who, under the advice of the associated 
physicians, and guided by the circular of Ho- 
moeopathic treatment of yellow fever prepared 
by Dr. Belden, rendered invaluable service in 
meeting and contending with the fever in its 
worst form. In addition to extending the work 
through their physicians, laymen and nurses into 
seventeen towns and villages in Mississippi and 
Louisiana, the Association transmitted their cir- 
cular of treatment with needed medicines to 
many hundred families living beyond the reach 
of medical aid. The total number of yellow 



fever cases treated Homceopathically under the 
auspices of the Association by the assisting phy- 
sicians, laymen, nurses and heads of families 
was 5,640 — of these, 3,184 were within the limits 
of New Orleans, and 2,456 were in towns, vil- 
lages and hamlets in adjacent fever districts, 
mainly in Mississippi. Of the 3,184 treated in 
the city, 164 died — a mortality of 5^ per cent. 
Of the 2,456 treated in outlying points, 174 
died — a mortality of 6 per cent. Of the entire 
number treated, 2,953 were reported as under 
fifteen years of age, with a loss of 124 cases, and 
a mortality of 4-^ per cent. So far as the re- 
ports distinguished as to color, 560 cases were 
negroes and mulattoes, of whom 14 died — a 
mortality of only 2 T 5 5 per cent. ; 231 cases of 
black vomit were treated by physicians and lay- 
men, of which 173 recovered. The last item 
speaks volumes for the success of Homoeopathy in 
controlling that special stage of yellow fever 
which is generally deemed a fatal one by the 
Allopathic school of practice. Numbers of cases 
in the last stages of the fever — black-vomit or 
collapse — left by physicians of other schools, 
were reluctantly taken charge of by Homoeo- 
pathic physicians and laymen, but successfully 
treated and eventually cured. By this means 
confidence in the Homoeopathic treatment was 
instilled into numbers both in New Orleans and 
the interior districts, thereby eliminating from 
the minds of thousands of residents of the fever 
districts much of the dread and consequent dan- 
ger of yellow fever. 

The total number of cases reported in New 
Orleans during the epidemic of 1878 was 23,540, 
with 4,046 deaths. The Homceopathists claim 
for its practice the merit of having reduced the 
mortality in yellow fever to a rate not greater 
than that of many other severe diseases. Dr. 
Belden prepared the circular for Homoeopathic 
treatment of yellow fever, which was issued and 
distributed with medicine by the Homoeopathic 
Relief Association during the epidemic in New 
Orleans of 1S78. He also published, in com- 
mon with many other Homoeopathic physicians, 
a report on the "Yellow Fever Epidemic of 
1878," in which he notices certain peculiarities 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



471 



of that summer; first, there was almost an entire 
absence of wind during the months of July and 
August, and the nights, instead of being breezy 
and refreshing as the summer nights usually are 
in New Orleans, were hot and stifling, the ther- 
mometer frequently standing at 91 Fahrenheit 
at S p. m., though the temperature of the day 
was not so warm, by three or four degrees, as in 
former years. There was also a strange absence 
of thunder-storms, but one of any note occurring 
during the entire summer. The disease was of 
a peculiar character, differing in many respects 
from that of former years. The type was less 
inflammatory, there was less pain in the head 
and limbs, and although apparently less for- 
midable, was in reality more treacherous than in 
any epidemic he ever remembered. There was 
great tendency to congestion of the kidneys, 
suppression of the urine being a very common 
symptom. Black-vomit was also of unusually 
common occurrence ; but in Dr. Belden's expe- 
rience, more than two-thirds of those cases re- 
covered. Another peculiarity was the number 
of children attacked — particularly of children 
born in New Orleans. Yellow fever seems to 
depend upon certain meteorological conditions, 
and if not produced, at least can almost surely 
be predicted by them. The yellow fever has 
seldom appeared anywhere without having been 
preceded by prolonged heat and peculiar electric 
conditions of the atmosphere, together with cer- 
tain local circumstances, liable to produce dis- 
ease at any time. It has been found by the 
records of former years in New Orleans that 
whenever the earth has been turned up and ex- 
posed to the heat of the sun in summer, it has 
been followed by an epidemic. During the 
summer of 187S streets and gutters were in an 
unusually filthy condition ; vacant lots were 
filled up with garbage, and fresh earth, garbage 
and other objectionable material were dumped 
in Tivoli Circle for the purpose of forming a 
foundation for the Lee Monument. Numerous 
ponds were left undrained along the levees, 
partly filled up with rice chaff, dead animals and 
other refuse matter, calculated with the stagnant 
water under a sun of 145 degrees to generate a 



miasma full of poison. In order, as it would 
seem, that the full effect of the poison eliminated 
might be brought to bear upon the inhabitants 
of the doomed city, the authorities unfortunately 
ordered these ponds drained, consequently 
causing the poisonous miasma to be evaporated 
and carried up into the atmosphere. The 
wharves also were denuded of their plank cov- 
ering, and the unimpeded evaporation of the 
accumulated filth there, and the more thorough 
poisoning of the air breathed daily by the people, 
was the natural consequence. While the sum- 
mer was not unusually hot, the highest tempera- 
ture being 96 , owing to the almost entire ab- 
sence of wind, the nights were very uncomfort- 
able; the small amount of electricity was another 
noticeable feature. These circumstances had 
undoubtedly a great deal to do with the preva- 
lence, virulence and fatality of the epidemic. 
After discussing at length the question of im- 
portation, Dr. Belden sums up as follows : 

"We do not need any visitor from foreign 
ports to bring us this pest; we have 'it in the 
bosom of our own soil, and only need certain 
hyglometric and electric conditions of the at- 
mosphere, an absence of wind, a sufficient 
quantity of humidity (without thunder-storms), 
a lack of ozone in the air, plenty of filthy gut- 
ters, rotten vegetables ad nauseam; and we can 
have the yellow fever at any time, if all our for- 
eign friends neglect us, and never send another 
case to our shores." 

Although a native of New York State, Dr. 
Belden has been for thirty-two years a resident 
of Louisiana, and during that time has expe- 
rienced almost uninterrupted good health, never 
having lost a day's practice during the last 
twelve years from sickness. This speaks vol- 
umes for the salubrity of the climate of the 
Pelican State, and proves it to be as healthful 
as the most favored State in the Union. 

Dr. Belden was married, in March, 1852, to 
Arabella Treat, daughter of H. H. Treat, of 
Buffalo, N. Y. Her family, which is of French 
descent, emigrated to this country during the 
French revolutionary war and settled in Phila- 
delphia, where they now own a large quantity 



472 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



is the grandniece of the 
a French nobleman. Her 




of real estate. She 
Marquis de Bailet 
grandfather's uncle was at one time in prison 
with Josephine Beauharnais, afterwards Empress 
of the French, and was afterwards beheaded. 
Dr. Belden has six children, four daughters and 
two sons, the eldest of whom, J. Webster Bel- 
den, has displayed great genius as a sculptor, 
and is now studying his profession in New York. 



HON. R. M. T. HUNTER. 
Virginia. 

OBERT MERCER TALIAFERRO 
HUNTER was born in Essex county, 
Va., April 21st, 1S09. He graduated 
at the University of Virginia, and, 
having attended the law school of 
Judge Henry St. George Tucker, at Winchester, 
returned to his native county in 1830, and com- 
menced the practice of law shortly after he 
reached his majority. Drawn into politics soon 
afterwards, he was elected, at the age of twenty- 
five, to the House of Delegates as an opponent 
of the proclamation and force bill of Jackson, 
for whom as a Presidential candidate he had 
cast his first vote. He served in the House of 
Delegates for two terms, and was elected for a 
third, but did not take his seat at the latter ses- 
sion, as in 1837, his political aptitudes and 
abilities having been manifested, he was elected 
the Representative of the Essex district in Con- 
gress, entering that body at the extra session 
called by President Van Buren to meet the em- 
barrassments of the treasury occasioned by the 
general suspension of specie payments. He 
promptly sided with the President in his recom- 
mendation of the independent treasury scheme 
as the fittest mode of meeting these embarrass- 
ments, and in his first speech, delivered in 
October, 1837, ably vindicated that measure, 
developing at the same time those principles of 
free trade to which he has ever since consistently 
adhered. At the next session of Congress he 
renewed his advocacy of the independent treas- 
ury bill, discussing exhaustively the subjects of 



banking and finance ; and, at the closing session 
of the same Congress, followed up the discus- 
sion with a report, as chairman of a select com- 
mittee, reviewing and sustaining the principles 
advocated in his speeches. In the following 
Congress he was elected Speaker, receiving at 
the close of his term of service the usual vote Of 
thanks without a dissenting voice, although the 
House was one unhappily distinguished for par- 
tisan bitterness. When Congress next met, the 
"hard cider" campaign had been fought and 
won, and he found himself and political friends 
confronted by a Whig majority under the leader- 
ship of Mr. Clay, whose whole system of meas- 
ures, beginning with the loan bill and ending 
with the protective tariff, he energetically op- 
posed. In 1843 he was defeated for Congress 
by a small majority ; his adherence to the clause 
of the independent treasury scheme requiring 
the payment in specie of all dues to the govern- 
ment having given offence to some of his AVhig 
friends; but at the next Congressional election, 
in 1845, h e was successful, returning to Con- 
gress with the inauguration of President Polk, 
whose election he had advocated, and whose 
principal measures he warmly espoused, espe- 
cially the annexation of Texas, which he had 
been amongst the first prominent public men to 
broach, having put forth the idea of immediate 
annexation in popular speeches as early as 1843, 
before the appearance of Mr. Robert J. Walker's 
letter on the subject. One of the first matters 
that came up in the Twenty-ninth Congress was 
the Oregon question, then in a somewhat threat- 
ening stage, and upon which he made a con- 
ciliatory speech of signal ability, its counsels, 
however, being overruled at the time, though 
prevailing substantially in the final settlement. . 
At the same session he introduced and carried 
the bill retroceding Alexandria to Virginia; and, 
as chairman of the public buildings committee, 
introduced the bill extending the Capitol. He 
also supported at this session the incorporation 
of the warehousing system into our revenue laws. 
During the next session the famous Wilmot pro- 
viso was offered, requiring beforehand the inter- 
diction of slavery in any territory which might 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



473 



be acquired froni Mexico in the treaty of peace 
then near at hand, a measure which, it is hardly 
necessary to say, he resisted by speech and vote, 
though he stopped far short of the extreme, to 
which some of his political associates were dis- 
posed to rush, of annexing the whole of Mexico. 
In this, as in other questions of the ante-bellum 
politics of the country, he showed a strong par- 
tiality for the golden mean and an instinctive 
recognition of it. In the winter of rS.4.6-47 he 
was elected by the Virginia Legislature to the 
United States Senate, taking his seat in Decem- 
ber of the latter year. Here, again, he encoun- 
tered the Wilmot proviso, which reared its front 
higher than ever on the question of providing 
governments for the new territories, but meeting 
from him here, as in the other house, stern op- 
position. He, however, supported the "Clay- 
ton Compromise," by which governments were 
provided for the territories of Oregon, Califor- 
nia, and New Mexico, based on the principle 
of non-intervention, leaving the question of 
slavery in the territories to be settled by the 
courts ; and, in the same spirit of conciliation, 
he supported at the ensuing session the Walker 
amendment, extending the laws of the United 
States over California. He was also willing, 
and had actually voted in the course of the par- 
liamentary mazes through which the question 
had been pursued, to extend the Missouri Com- 
promise line to the Pacific ocean. In short, he 
stood ready, and so avowed, to agree to any fair 
compromise which should save the honor and 
the rights of the South. At this session the 
"Kossuth craze" reached the Senate, breaking 
out in the form of a proposition to suspend dip- 
lomatic relations with Austria because she had 
mistreated Hungary, a piece of false sentimen- 
talism to which he applied with good effect the 
Ithuriel spear of Washington's sage policy. In 
1850 he was made Chairman of the Finance 
Committee of the Senate, and held the position 
uninterruptedly until he withdrew from that 
body at the outbreak of the civil war. During 
the sessions of 1851-52 and 1852-53, besides 
taking a large and conspicuous part in the gen- 
eral debates of the Senate, as indeed he did 



throughout his service, notwithstanding the ex- 
acting and laborious nature of his special duties, 
he made, as head of the finance committee, a 
report on the gold and silver coinage of the 
country, in which he advocated what is known 
as the token currency, as also the bi-metallic 
standard, and reviewed the whole subject of 
coinage. He likewise initiated the reduction 
in the value of the silver coins of fifty cents and 
less, whereby their shipment to foreign coun- 
tries was arrested. In the presidential canvass 
of 1852 he delivered before the Democratic 
Association of Richmond, at the request of that 
body, an address tracing the history of parties 
from the foundation of the government, and 
contending with great ability for the soundness 
of the States Rights doctrine. He was con- 
sulted by President Pierce, immediately after 
the election, as to the formation of his cabinet, 
being himself offered the choice of the places in 
it, with the suggestion of the Secretaryship of 
the Treasury, but he declined them all. On 
the expiration of his first term in the Senate he 
was re-elected, every Democrat but one in the 
Legislature supporting him, and half of the 
Whigs. The principal question before the new 
Congress was the Kansas-Nebraska bill, provid- 
ing for the territorial organization of Kansas 
and Nebraska, and repealing the Missouri line. 
This measure he zealously supported. In the 
spring of 1S55 he took the field in Virginia 
against the Know-Nothing party, making power- 
ful addresses at Richmond, Petersburg, and other 
prominent places in the State, and contributing 
largely to the brilliant victory achieved by Wise 
as the Democratic candidate for the governor- 
ship. On the eve of the Presidential election 
of 1856 he delivered a masterly address before 
the New York Democrats at Poughkeepsie. In 
the session of 1856-57 he reported the tariff 
act of 1858, which he had framed, and which 
he followed into a committee of conference, or 
special committee, composed of Seward, Doug- 
las, and himself, holding chief control over it 
there as elsewhere until its final passage. By 
this act the duties were lowered, and the articles 
used as raw material in manufactures placed on 



474 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the free list, the result being that in the second 
year of its operation the navigation returns 
showed a large increase, making the United 
States second only to Great Britain, and even 
manufactures were greatly benefited. In the 
course of the winter of 1857-58 he was a third 
time elected Senator by the Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, only ten out of about one hundred and 
sixty members voting for other candidates. At 
the session of this winter he advocated the ad- 
mission of Kansas into the Union under the Le- 
compton Constitution, and served as a member 
of the Committee of Conference that reported 
the "English bill," which was finally adopted. 

On the occasion of the inauguration at Rich- 
mond of Crawford's statue of Washington, Feb- 
ruary 22d, 1858, he pronounced an oration 
perhaps the most eloquent and pregnant of his 
numerous excursions into the field of political 
philosophy. In i860 he was one of the princi- 
pal candidates for the Democratic nomination 
to the Presidency, receiving on several ballots 
at Charleston a vote next to that of Douglas. 
Among his closing acts in the Senate he offered, 
January nth, 1861, a resolution authorizing the 
President to retrocede the forts and arsenals 
within any State upon the application of the 
Legislature or a convention of the people of the 
State, taking at the same time proper security 
for their safe-keeping and return or payment. 
An amendment to this resolution having been 
offered, he delivered an extended speech, in 
which he discussed all the important points of 
the crisis, declaring that the question was no 
longer one of Union, but of reunion, and that 
he offered his resolution as a means of promoting 
the eventual reconstruction of a confederacy al- 
ready broken. At the expiration of the Thirty- 
sixth Congress he took final leave of his seat in 
the Senate, from which he was afterwards for- 
mally expelled. In the secession movement he 
took a leading part, and became Secretary of 
State on the resignation of Robert Toombs, of 
Georgia, resigning himself shortly after, on his 
election to the Confederate Senate, and being 
succeeded by Judah P. Benjamin. Although he 
acted as President of the Senate during most of 



his service in that body, owing to the continued 
illness of Vice-President Stephens, he took, 
nevertheless, an influential part in the business 
of legislation, serving on the Finance Commit- 
tee, and introducing, among other measures, the 
bill for levying a "tax in kind," which enabled 
the Confederate government to prosecute the 
war much longer than would otherwise have 
been possible, and proposing as well as advo- 
cating a scheme for converting treasury notes 
into bonds at such a rate of interest in coin as 
would keep the bonds, and consequently the 
circulation, at par, the notes and bonds being 
interconvertible. This measure was adopted by 
the Confederate Congress too late, however, to 
be of use. Another scheme urged by him, 
though without success, chiefly through the op- 
position of the Confederate government, was 
the trading of cotton with Northern speculators 
for ammunition, supplies, and so forth, at a time 
when it was clearly feasible. 

In January, 1865, he was appointed, together 
with Vice-President Stephens and Judge Camp- 
bell, to proceed to Washington for "informal 
conference" with President Lincoln on the 
issues involved in the war, and "for the purpose 
of securing peace, to the two countries." As, 
however, the letter of Mr. Lincoln, on which 
the appointment was based, consented to receive 
a commission solely "with the view of securing 
peace to the people of our one common coun- 
try," the conference, it should seem, was a pre- 
determined failure. He, with his colleagues, 
met Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward on board a 
vessel in Hampton Roads, and went through 
with the forms of a conference and with as 
much of the substance as the situation per- 
mitted, and then returned to Richmond, where, 
the result being made known, a public meeting 
was immediately held, at which he presided, 
delivering a stirring speech, and by which reso- 
lutions were adopted in favor of prosecuting the 
war with renewed vigor. As one of the means 
of doing this, a bill was introduced in the Con- 
federate House of Representatives the next day, 
authorizing the employment of slaves as soldiers, 
with freedom as a bounty. This measure, when 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



475 



it reached the Senate, he opposed, but, being 
instructed by the Legislature of Virginia, after- 
wards voted for it, with an emphatic protest 
against it, insisting that it was a measure of 
weakness, instead of strength, since the slave, 
useful and contented as a laborer, would as a 
soldier generally desert to the enemy, subtract- 
ing his labor from the South and adding his 
service to the North, a view confirmed by the 
operation of the law already in force to enlist 
20,000 negroes as teamsters, under which more 
had deserted than had enlisted. The bill was 
ultimately defeated in the Senate by one vote. 

At the close of the war he was arrested and 
imprisoned for about five months; first on a war 
steamer in James river, and then at Fort Pulaski, 
a sickly station on the coast of Georgia. He 
was finally released on parole, and in 1867 par- 
doned by President Johnson. In the Presiden- 
tial canvass of 1872 he supported Greeley, 
delivering, by invitation, a speech at Tammany 
Plall, wherein he warned the people that efforts 
were making by Grant and the Republican party 
to concentrate all political power in the Federal 
government, which, if pursued much further, 
must end in monarchy, whether so designed or 
not. In 1874, Virginia having been admitted to 
her rights as well as her place in the Union, he 
was a candidate before the Legislature for a seat 
in the United States Senate, but was defeated, 
Mr. Withers being elected. Subsequently he 
accepted the office of State Treasurer of Virginia, 
which he now holds. 

In January, 1876, he addressed to the Hon. 
L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, a very able let- 
ter in behalf of the Texas and Pacific Railway, 
which, in view of late events, has been repub- 
lished and widely circulated. He has recently 
contributed a number of valuable papers to 
political literature, and is now engaged in pre- 
paring a "Life of John C. Calhoun," whose 
views of government in the main he approves, 
and with whose "logic on fire " he has a strong 
intellectual sympathy, born of a kindred quality 
in his own logic. A biography in all respects 
worthy of the subject may be reasonably 
expected. 




HON. DAVID CLOPTON. 
Alabama. 

AVID CLOPTON was born in Putnam 
county, Ga., September 29th, 1820. 
The Cloptons are of English descent ; 
Tvi tw0 brothers of that name came over 
^ to this country some time previous to 
the war of independence, one of whom, William 
Clopton, was married and settled in New Kent 
county, Va., while the other, who was single, 
returned to England. From William Clopton, 
who was a planter, are descended all the families 
of that name in the United States, now dis- 
tributed throughout Virginia, North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas. There has 
been, as far as is known, but one member of this 
numerous family who ever resided north of Ma- 
son and Dixon's line, and he is a lawyer now, 
of New York, where he removed from Arkansas 
since the war. David Clopton, grandson of the 
above named and grandfather of the subject of 
this sketch, was a Virginia planter, and had four 
sons: Nathaniel, afterwards a physician in Vir- 
ginia ; Albert, a lawyer in Macon, Ga. ; David, 
a planter in Louisiana, and Dr. Alford Clopton, 
father of the present David Clopton, who re- 
moved into Putnam county, Ga. , when he was a 
young man. He was a prominent physician, 
several times a member of the Georgia Legisla- 
ture, and president of a bank in Macon, Ga. 
He married, in Monticello, Ga., Sarah Ken- 
drick, daughter of Martin Kendrick, of Washing- 
ton county, and had five sons, of whom Martin 
K. Clopton, the eldest, served in General Lee's 
army during the civil war, and died from the 
effects of hardship and exposure soon after the 
battles of the Wilderness ; James O. A. Clopton, 
the youngest son, a lieutenant in the Confeder- 
ate service, was killed at the battle of the 21st 
of August, before Atlanta, while in command 
of a company; Nathaniel V. Clopton is now a 
planter in Butler county, Ala., and Albert G. 
Clopton a physician in Jefferson, Texas. 

David Clopton received his primary education 
at the country schools in Putnam county, and at 



476 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the Edenton Academy, Edenton, Ga., until he 
was eleven years of age, when his father removed 
into Macon county, Ala., and settled in Vine- 
ville, where David attended school until his 
sixteenth year. He entered Randolph-Macon 
College, Va., in 1836, and graduated thence in 
1S40. Among his classmates at the college may 
be mentioned Rev. James Pierce, son of Dr. 
Lovick Pierce, of Georgia, who afterwards mar- 
ried Mr. Clopton's youngest sister; and Colonel 
James F. Dowdell, for three terms member of 
Congress from Alabama. He studied law under 
Hon. Absalom H. Chappell, at Macon, Ga., and 
was examined for admission to the bar before he 
was twenty-one years of age; but his license was 
necessarily withheld until he attained his ma- 
jority, in the fall of 1841, when he was admitted. 
He commenced the practice of his profession in 
Griffin, Ga., where he formed a partnership with 
Robert S. Lanier, now of Macon, Ga. In 1844 
he removed to Tuskegee, Ala., where he was 
associated for some nine months with Solomon 
L. Pope, who afterwards removed to Georgia. 
After practising by himself for some time, he 
entered into partnership, in 1847, with his 
brother-in-law, Robert F. Ligon, who had then 
just returned from the Mexican war. This 
partnership lasted for nineteen years, and was 
only terminated by the removal of Mr. Clopton 
to Montgomery, in 1866. In August, 1859, he 
was nominated, much against his wish, by his 
party for Congress. Both candidates occupied 
the same platform in their advocacy of secession, 
providing Abraham Lincoln should be elected 
President; but Mr. Clopton was a staunch Demo- 
crat, and had been a secessionist since 1852-53, 
when the compromise measures were passed, 
while Mr. Judge was an old-line Whig. In the 
election of 1857 Mr. Judge had been defeated 
by Hon. James F. Dowdell by only eighty ma- 
jority, and it was felt that on this occasion the 
Democrats must bring forward their strongest 
man to insure success. One of the hottest and 
most exciting canvasses ever witnessed in Ala- 
bama ensued: Mr. Clopton was a most adroit 
stump-speaker, equal to every occasion, and his 
power over his audiences was wonderful ; the 



people followed him from town to town, and his 
great personal popularity helping to wipe out 
the Whig majority in Macon county, in which 
he lived, he was elected by a majority of 221 
votes. He took his seat in Congress in Decem- 
ber, 1859, serving through that session, returned 
to Washington in December, 1S60, and when 
Alabama passed the ordinance of secession re- 
tired with the rest of the Alabama delegation. 

In the spring of 1861 he volunteered as a pri- 
vate in a company of which Robert F. Ligon 
was captain, and which afterwards formed a 
portion of the Twelfth Alabama Infantry. The 
regiment was organized in Richmond, in July, 
1861, and at once moved to the front, arriving 
at Manassas just after the first battle of that 
name had been fought. He remained with his 
regiment until November, 1861, when the people 
of his district elected him to the Confederate 
Congress. The permanent Confederate Con- 
gress met in Richmond; February, 1S62, and 
after serving that term he was re-elected, in 
1S63, over Mr. John H. Cadenhead, of Macon, 
remaining in Congress until the downfall of the 
Confederacy. 

In March, 1S66, he settled in Montgomery 
and resumed the practice of his profession, form- 
ing a partnership with Judge George W. Stone 
and General James H. Clanton. This partner- 
ship was terminated in September, 1871, by the 
death of General Clanton, who was shot dead on 
the street in Knoxville, Tenn., while attending 
the United States Court, as attorney for the 
State of Alabama in the matter of the Alabama 
and Chattanooga Railroad. From that time he 
continued his partnership with Judge Stone until 
March, 1876, when the latter was elevated to 
the bench. In the fall of 1876 the present firm 
of Clopton, Herbert & Chambers was formed, 
the other members being Hilary A. Herbert, 
member of Congress, now in his second term, 
and William L. Chambers, Mr. Clopton's son- 
in-law. 

On the 1 2th of October, 1870, General Rob- 
ert E. Lee, the great military chieftain of the 
South, died at Lexington, Va., and on the day 
appointed for his burial, the people of Mont- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



477 



gomery assembled at the Presbyterian church, in 
which services were held, and an eulogy deliv- 
ered by Mr. Clopton, as follows : 

"My Bereaved Countrymen: Why this 
weeping of nature? Why does the cypress bend 
lower — the willow droop more sadly — the air 
vibrate with suppressed emotion ? What means 
this voice of mourning coming from valley and 
mountain, from sea-coast and river side, from 
rural quiet and busy marts — this people, bowed 
in sorrow ; this hour o'ercast with darkness and 
gloom ; this pall of grief that spreads its sable 
folds over the land ? What has crushed the 
mighty heart of a brave, heroic, enduring people? 
Stay, lightning messenger ! Tell it not ! Be 
hushed, sovereign death ! And yet it is true. 
' Know ye not that a prince and great man has 
fallen in Israel?' 

" ' Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies 
A man unparalleled.' 

"At this hour, I see a long procession of old 
men and young, matrons and maiden beauty, 
with tearful eyes, moistened cheeks, and sad- 
dened hearts, winding its way with silent tread, 
to the house of mourning in the town of Lexing- 
ton. I hear the minister, in solemn, penitent 
prayer, imploring the Father of Mercies to 
temper the blade of justice, and muffle the hand 
that strikes. I hear the chanting of a requiem 
for the dead. I see the mourning relatives and 
sorrowing friends gather around the bier to take 
a farewell look at the manly form — cold, icy 
cold — but manly still ; the beaming, kindly eye 
opens not upon them ; the cordial hand extends 
not its grasp; the warm heart beats not for 
them. A few moments more, and the grave will 
claim for its own all that remains on earth of 
Robert E. Lee. 

" ' Here let him sleeping lie 

Till heaven's bright watchers slumber in the sky, 
And Death himself shall die.' 

" In the reign of Charles I., Richard Lee came 
from England to the colony of Virginia, under 
an official appointment from the Governor. He 
was the ancestor of the Virginia Lees, and 
bequeathed to his descendants not only his name 



but his distinguishing traits; for it is related 
that he was ' a man ' of good stature, comely 
visage, enterprising genius, a sound head, vigor- 
ous spirit and generous nature. Thus, in the 
earliest days, the name of Lee is associated with 
some of the most important measures, and is 
identified with and forms part and parcel of 
the history of Virginia. What a crowning glory, 
what a heritage to the generations, that through 
this long vista of years, it has ever been con- 
nected with that which is wise, and good and 
true, comes down untarnished and with lustre 
undimmed ! Never brighter, purer, clearer, than 
the halo that encircles the name of our own 
great chieftain. The spirit of liberty, independ- 
ence and courage which has ever marked the 
family is aptly illustrated by an incident which 
occurred with the son of Richard Henry. He 
was in England at school. Soon after the Dec- 
laration of Independence was made public in 
that country, a gentleman asked his tutor, 
'What boy is this?' He replied: 'He is the 
son of Richard Henry Lee, of America.' Put- 
ting his hand upon the boy's head, the gentle- 
man said : ' We shall yet see your father's head 
upon Tower Hill. ' The boy promptly re- 
sponded : ' You may have it, when you can get 
it.' His father, General Henry Lee, has a 
Revolutionary fame. Early in the struggle, he 
entered the military service ; soon achieved a 
high character for discipline and bravery; ad- 
vanced from promotion to promotion ; attained 
a high position of admiration with his fellow- 
officers and soldiers; and was ever in the front 
of success, as well as of danger. After the close 
of the war he was elected to a seat in Congress ; 
afterwards Governor of Virginia, and again to 
Congress. His corps having been placed under 
the immediate control of Washington, he soon 
became his bosom-friend and confidant, and was 
chosen by the Federal Congress to pronounce 
a funeral oration on his death. Such was the 
father who inculcated in the mind and heart 
of Robert E. Lee his lessons of bravery, discip- 
line, virtue and patriotism. Born in the same 
chamber where Richard Henry Lee first saw the 
day, educated by the good example and faithful 



478 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



instructions of his father, and led upward by the 
soft, maternal care of his mother, ennobled by 
the past, and inspired by the dawning future, 
Robert E. Lee, faithful to the instincts and 
promptings of a true nature, has done increased 
honor to his ancestors by his own great deeds. 
Their virtuous and noble acts have taken root in 
him, and borne rich and glorious fruit. His 
youth was passed in exciting times, excited by the 
expectation of another struggle with England, 
which terminated in collision and a successful 
result. Amid such scenes, his mind was early 
accustomed to the pomp and circumstances, the 
threatenings and mutterings of war. Entering 
in 1825 as a cadet at West Point, he remained 
there the usual four years, completing his studies, 
and preparing himself for that future military 
career in which he became the observed of the 
world. During this period, as I heard one who 
was there with him remark, he stood first and 
foremost of two hundred and fifty young men 
collected from every section of the country, and 
never had a report or mark of demerit against 
him. In his youth and amid temptations not rare 
or weak, he exhibited and strengthened those 
virtues of character and elements of manhood 
which ever promise a useful life, an honored name 
and a beloved memory. May the young men of 
the country study and be wise, and profit by his 
precepts, and imitate his great example. Imme- 
diately after graduating he entered the military 
service. His first important distinction was 
acquired during the war with Mexico. At Vera 
Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Cherubusco, 
Chapultepec, and Molino del Rey, he greatly 
distinguished himself by his operations in 
reconnoissances, planting batteries, conducting 
columns to their stations under heavy fire, 
and, as said by General Scott, ' was as distin- 
guished for felicitous execution, as for science 
and daring.' He was the special favorite of 
that veteran general, and scarcely is there a 
single despatch during the Mexican campaign 
in which his name is not honorably men- 
tioned. Passing over the intervening time, we 
approach the beginning of that period, which 
has made his name so conspicuous throughout 



all lands. A great conflict was about to com- 
mence compared with which previous wars were 
but as skirmishes. A great country was about 
to divide, and section grapple in deadly strife 
with section. States, in defence of claimed and 
asserted sovereignty, are arming for hostilities 
with the Federal government, which asserted its 
supremacy. In the Senate, on the hustings, 
in the councils of peace, great and wise states- 
men had failed to settle the issue, and now 
came the wager of battle. Lee was in Texas 
with his regiment, and there he received infor- 
mation that his native State contemplated 
secession. Soon he returned to Arlington and 
calmly, courageously, firmly he abided the time 
— but during that time how great must have 
been the struggle in the great heart of that 
great man ! On one side his career, fame and 
rank were arrayed, and identified with the flag 
under which he had fought so well anoT so 
bravely. With rank and flag he must part, but 
his career could not be obliterated nor his f.ime 
extinguished. On the other side were patriotism, 
love of country, and attachment to the State 
which gave him birth — all which drew him to 
her fortunes, whatever they might be. 

"The clouds gathered thicker and darker ; the 
storm burst; the sound of war resounded aloud, 
and brave men sprang to arms. Virginia re- 
solved, and summoned Lcc to her defence. He 
hesitated not a moment ; and when General 
Scott besought him not to resign his commission 
his response was, 'I am compelled to.' The 
scenes of that hour, his letter of resignation, and 
his parting with his old companion-in-arms, 
evince the greatness of his soul — great in his de- 
votion to the service, which had engaged his 
life and ability — great in his determination to 
separate from it at the call of duty ; great in his 
gratitude to those from whom he had received a 
kindness; great in his friendship for his com- 
rades, and greatest in his love for his native 
State. He could not be tempted by the offer 
of high command in the army which he was 
leaving; he shrank not from the spectre of a 
reputation which it would be attempted to blem- 
ish by associating it with the epithets of rebel 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



479 



and traitor. He foresaw the stupendous results 
that would follow a collision of arms, and felt 
deep inward sorrow in contemplating the mis- 
ery, devastation and woe that would ensue upon 
the spilling of blood. His military eye saw the 
horrors and calamities of war more clearly and 
broadly than others whose eyes were unaccus- 
tomed and whose vision was obscured. He 
knew the power, the might and military re- 
sources of the government, and the consequent 
toil, duration and doubtful issue of the contest. 
But naught moved him from his purpose. Vir- 
ginia had raised her banner and called him to 
bear it. He acted, as Mrs. Lee wrote, ' My 
husband has wept tears of blood over this terri- 
ble war, but he must, as a man of honor and a 
Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which 
has solemnly pronounced for independence.' 
Noble words of a noble wife of a noble husband. 
Every important event of his life is stamped with 
the impress of his magnanimity. When the 
Convention of Virginia chose him commander 
of the military forces of the State, on appearing 
to receive his commission, the President ad- 
dressed him, and General Lee responded. His 
response is characteristic — simple, earnest, 
modest, assured, and closes with this sentence : 
' Trusting in Almighty God, an approving con- 
science, and the aid of my fellow-citizens, I de- 
vote myself to the service of my native State, in 
whose behalf alone will I ever again draw my 
sword.' An alliance between Virginia and the 
Confederate States would necessarily lower his 
rank in the Confederate army, and this con- 
sideration presented with his friends a formida- 
ble obstacle to any alliance. Lee saw and com- 
prehended the difficulty, and with unselfish, 
disinterested patriotism, he urged his friends not 
to permit anything connected with himself indi- 
vidually, or his official rank or personal position, 
to interfere with the immediate consummation 
of that measure which he regarded as of the 
utmost importance. Country with him was ever 
first. The tremendous events which followed, 
the arduous campaign, the magnificent battles, 
the defeats and victories, the sufferings, toils and 
privations, and the disastrous results with the 



military career of Lee during the ensuing years 
of the war, are all too recent for me to weary 
you with allusions to them. Pass rapidly before 
your mind its panorama — note each great scene 
and stirring event, and amid each stands forth 
one prominent central figure, guiding, planning, 
inspiring and enthusing — Robert E. Lee. 
Tested by military standards and criteria, con- 
sidering his achievements with his exhausted 
resources and the odds opposing, history, un- 
blinded, impartial, will enroll him the greatest 
military genius of his age. His star will not 
pale when set in the constellation of the Alex- 
anders, Hannibals, Cresars, Bonapartes and 
Wellingtons. Rising slowly but surely above 
the horizon, it continued to ascend higher and 
higher with increasing splendor and brightness, 
until, even at its setting on the field of his sur- 
render, its effulgence threw back a radiance over 
his whole past life. Whether we consider his 
amazing power of combination, whilst he kept 
in view every detail, his quick conception and 
sudden execution, his ceaseless activity, his abil- 
ity to command, plan and devise ; when we 
trace his career from the time he assumed com- 
mand in front of McClellan, on and down to fatal 
Appomattox, he stands forth the same wonder- 
ful man, the same grand subject for human con- 
templation and admiration. To the present and 
future generations his character is a worthy sub- 
ject for study. Time serves me not for its 
analysis. Nature fashioned him, I had almost 
said, in a faultless mould. Physically, mentally, 
spiritually he was of the manliest ; handsome 
form, tall, broad-shouldered, well-made and 
well-set — a thorough soldier in appearance — 
with manners courteous and full of dignity, his 
physical man harmonized with his well-balanced 
mind and symmetrical moral character. Free 
from small vices, no enemy ever accused him of 
great ones. His devotion to duty distinguished 
him among his fellows. Every act was measured 
by it, every movement controlled, and every 
feeling subordinated to it. It is forcibly ex- 
pressed by himself, when he wrote to his son : 
' Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our lan- 
guage. Do your duty in all things. You can- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



not do more. You should never wish to do 
less. Never let me and your mother wear one 
gray hair for any lack of duty on your part.' 
This devotion to duty, the rule with which he 
measured every deed — aye, life itself — was based 
upon and supported by an enlightened conscien- 
tiousness. From this root, nurtured from a 
pious mother's breast, dug about by a father's 
careful hand, budding in youth and bearing the 
ripest fruit in manhood, first the blade, the tas- 
sel, and the ear, sprang and grew the many vir- 
tues and excellencies of his character. It was 
the shield of his integrity ; the sword with which 
he fought the battles of life ; the armor with 
which the shafts of trials and temptation were 
repelled; the guardian-angel of his patriotism ; 
the basis of his religion. No sacrifice so great, 
no reward so rich, no honor or promotion as 
precious and cherished, but that all were laid 
upon the altar of duty. This was the corner- 
stone of his quiet modesty, his utter want of 
vanity, egotism or self-seeking ; his determina- 
tion to spend and be spent in his work. It was 
this that made him warm, humane, cordial, 
affectionate, true and incorruptible. It was this 
that made his character grand and heroic, than 
which no more perfect model exists among liv- 
ing men ; that adorned it with beauty, as beauti- 
ful as ever seen or written — each part being in 
perfect proportion and harmony with every 
other part, and with the whole. It was this 
that endowed him with personal disinterested- 
ness and an unselfish devotion to principles and 
country. This was the foundation of his piety. 
With him life was a serious affair. ' It was not 
all of life to live.' He was conscious that the 
searching gaze of the sleepless eye of God was 
upon him, and shaped every thought, word and 
action with reference to the Divine approval. 
' No stain of insincerity, meanness, nor vain- 
glorying blurred a character which thus com- 
bined the loftiest virtues of the gentleman, the 
soldier and the Christian.' With no one men- 
tal faculty largely predominant all were fully de- 
veloped. He was equal to every position and 
every work. No emergency was too great, no 
exigency too sudden, no demand too severe. 



Never shooting upward fitfully, with glaring, 
dazzling light, then extinguished, his even, 
equal mind ever gave forth regular, beaming, 
revealing rays. ' He was endowed with all the 
natural talents vouchsafed to man, and thor- 
oughly educated intellectually, socially and reli- 
giously. ' 

"Truly great and truly good, he considered 
first how he might gain the approbation of God, 
then that of his own conscience, and, having 
done this, conciliated the good opinion of his 
fellow-men. The silent conqueror of himself, 
the thirst of other men's ambition was not his; 
the aim of their existence was not his. Born 
great, he also achieved greatness, and had great- 
ness thrust upon him. And when passion and 
prejudice shall have subsided, and party lost its 
venom, when men shall look through a glass not 
darkly, posterity will award him the meed of a 
perfect Christian gentleman, a brave, skilful cap- 
tain, and an unambitious, unselfish patriot. The 
future will receive him as a great exemplar, a 
chiseled specimen of his race, and his country 
will rank him among her brightest glories. 
Great as he was in war, he was greater in defeat 
and in the walks of peace. When the God of 
battles pronounced against him, and the shat- 
tered, exhausted condition of his forces taught 
him that further resistance would be vain, with 
no personal ambition to gratify, and no false 
military pride to sustain, and desiring to avoid 
a useless effusion, he surrendered his army, 
sheathed his sword and folded his conquered 
banner. Calm, collected, with dignity and 
noble mien, he retired from the scene of con- 
flict and campaigns to private life, without mur- 
muring or repining; and surveying the whole 
field of usefulness devoted the remainder of his 
life to the unobtrusive task of educating, train- 
ing and disciplining the young men of his de- 
vastated land — reconstructing the fabric of 
Southern civilization, and preparing polished 
ashlers for the Southern social temple. A 
worthy end to a worthy life. Such was Robert 
E. Lee, whose life and character will support 
the laurels that adorn his name and fame, a 
superstructure in which are beautifully and har- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



moniously blended and combined the*simplicity 
of the Tuscan, the strength of the Doric, the 
elegance of the Corinthian and the beauty of 
the Composite — the cardinal virtues which orna- 
mented are Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, 
and Justice, and the pillars which sustain it are 
Beauty, Strength and Wisdom. Lorn upon the 
same soil with Washington, having breathed the 
same mountain air, quaffed the same limpid 
waters, and inspired by the same associations, 
he is his peer in war, his peer in peace, and will 
be his peer in the hearts of his countrymen. 
Tut he has gone — his body will sleep in its ap- 
propriate resting-place beneath the chapel erected 
by him for the religious education of the young. 
His remains, with his banner, will return dust 
to dust, earth to earth. His spirit is with the 
saints. He speaketh though dead. His exam- 
ple is left to the ages. His monument is in the 
love of his countrymen. His memory will be 
wreathed with a garland of immortality. His 
life teaches — 

" ' 'Tis hardship toil, 
'Tis sleepless nights, and never-resting days, 
'Tis pain, 'tis danger, 'tis affronted death, 
'Tis equal fate for all, and changing fortune 
That rear the mind to glory, that inspire 
The noblest virtues and the gentlest manners.' 

" 'Help, Lord, for the godly ceaseth ; for the 
faithful fail among the children of men.' " 

■After the war, although taking a deep interest 
in the welfare of his section, Mr. Clopton took 
little part in politics until the memorable cam- 
paign of 1874, when he thought that the time 
had arrived for the redemption of the State from 
the infamy of carpet-bag and negro rule. He 
took a prominent part in the fierce and exciting 
canvass which preceded the State election of 
that year, in which the intelligence and worth 
of Alabama, backed by the people stirred to 
their inmost depths by the wrongs and op- 
pressions of years of profligate Radical rule, 
were arrayed against the Republican party, the 
mass of whom were ignorant negroes, rendered 
desperate by the frantic appeals to their preju- 
dices made by their white leaders, who felt this 



to be their death-struggle for the control of the 
State. In the interest of the Republican party, 
Federal spies, informers and detectives swarmed 
through the State, and Federal troops were sta- 
tioned at various points, and used in arresting 
active Democrats, who were carried to great 
distances and bound over before United States 
Commissioners to answer imaginary charges that 
were never prosecuted. Nothing, however, 
could damp the ardor of the masses of the 
Democratic party, who were stirred up to a 
fierce enthusiasm which opposition only served 
to inflame. Mr. Clopton, with every leading 
member of the party, made speeches in all parts 
of the State, wherever their influence would have 
the best effect, and it was no uncommon thing 
for between 300 and 400 speeches to be made in 
different parts of the State in one day. The 
election resulted in the complete triumph of the 
Democrats, who carried the State by over 13,- 
000 majority, and as subsequent events have 
proved, this was the complete and final over- 
throw of the Republican party in Alabama, 

At the Montgomery county convention, held 
in June, 1S78, to nominate candidates for the 
State Legislature, Mr. Clopton was, entirely 
without his knowledge, unanimously nominated 
for the House of Representatives, and such was 
his popularity that in the election which fol- 
lowed, in a county containing a Republican 
majority of at least 3,500, he was returned by 
about 1,800 majority. On the meeting of the 
Legislature, in November, 1S78, he was elected 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. Mr. 
Clopton has always taken great interest in po- 
litical affairs and in the government of the coun- 
try, but has never aspired to any political office, 
although he has received repeated requests to 
allow his name to be used for that purpose, 
which he has invariably declined. In his pro- 
fession he has always had a large practice, both 
in Tuskegee and Montgomery, and his present 
firm does probably the most extensive and lu- 
crative law business in Montgomery ; standing, 
as he does, in the very first rank at the bar, he 
has been engaged in almost every important 
case in his district since the war. 



482 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



He holds a very high position among the 
Freemasons, having been elected in 1S53 Grand 
Master of the Grand Lodge of Alabama, and 
held that office for three successive years, the 
full time allowed by the Constitution ; he was 
then elected Grand High Priest of the Grand 
Chapter of Alabama, holding that position also 
for three successive years, the longest time al- 
lowed by the Constitution. He is an active 
and earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and has for many years devoted espe- 
cial attention to the Sunday-schools; he was 
Superintendent of the Tuskegee Sund. y-school 
for a long period, and has been Superintendent 
of the Sunday-school jn Montgomery for the 
last ten years. Judge Clopton is one of the 
ablest members of the Alabama bar, and as an 
advocate, as well as a sound lawyer, has few 
equals and no superiors. In Chancery, the Su- 
preme Court, the United States Courts — in fact, 
in every department of his profession, he is 
equally prominent, while before a jury the clear- 
ness and force of his argument and the earnest- 
ness of his manner aie simply irresistible. Pos- 
sessing remarkable lucidity of intellect and great 
power of analysis, his arguments are pointed and 
cogent, while his oratory is scholarly and refined, 
and his command of language remarkable. The 
purity of his character is exceptional, and a deep 
religious tone pervades his nature. Of rare 
judgment and ability, yet modest and unassum- 
ing withal, his kindness of heart and suavity of 
manner have made him universally beloved and 
respected throughout the South. 



HON. S. L. LEAPHART. 

South Carolina. 

HEROD LUTHER LEAPHART was 
born, December 2 2d, 1830, in Lexing- 
ton county, S. C. ; he is the son of 
Michael Leaphart, a prosperous farmer, 
of Lexington county, his ancestors on 
both sides being of German descent. His edu- 
cation was received at a well-known school at 
Cokesbury, S. C, where he remained until 




1854, when he engaged in mercantile pursuits 
until the outbreak of the war, and in April, 1S61, 
volunteered as Sergeant in the Second South 
Carolina regiment, and was present at the bom- 
bardment of Fort Sumter. From thence the 
regiment was ordered to Virginia, and was the 
second to arrive from any other Southern State. 
He was here elected Lieutenant in Company A, 
known as the Governor's Guards, and stationed 
at Richmond; from thence they moved to Fair- 
fax Court-House and Manassas, taking part in the 
first battle of that name. At the expiration of 
the first year the regiment was reorganized, and 
he was made Captain of his company, and par- 
ticipated in all the engagements of the Army of 
Northern Virginia until the battle of Sharpsburg, 
where he was severely wounded in the face and 
head, and left for dead on the field, but subse- 
quently found and carried off; the scars of these 
wounds he carries to this day. Recovering from 
his wounds after several months' tedious suffer- 
ing, he joined his command in May, 1S63, 
shortly before the battle of Chancellorsville, and 
participated in General Lee's second campaign 
across the Potomac, and on July 2d, 1S63, the 
second day of the battle of Gettysburg, was 
severely wounded, and compelled to lose his 
right arm. On the retreat from Pennsylvania 
he fell into the hands of the enemy, and re- 
mained a prisoner for twenty-one months at 
Fort McHenry, Johnson's Island, Lake Erie. 
He was released early in 1865, and shortly be- 
fore the surrender was engaged with Kennedy's 
brigade in Major-General Kershaw's division 
and General Longstreet's corps. After the ter- 
mination of hostilities, General Perry became 
Governor of South Carolina under President 
Johnson's plan of reconstruction, and Captain 
Leaphart was elected by the Legislature Comp- 
troller-General, which office he continued to fill 
during both General Sickles' and General Can- 
by's military Governorship of the State. In 
politics he has always been a staunch and con- 
sistent Democrat, and when in 1876 the intelli- 
gent and responsible men of the "Prostrate 
State " determined to make a strong and united 
effort to extricate her from the hands of the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



483 



thieves who had controlled the government for 
so many years, his name was selected for State 
Treasurer, and after taking an active part in the 
arduous and exciting campaign that followed, he 
was elected with the rest of his ticket. Al- 
though elected in November, 1S76, in conse- 
quence of the troubles arising from the claims 
of the rival governments, he did not take pos- 
session of his office until May, 1877, but has 
since administered it with such marked ability 
and success as to gain the entire confidence of 
the public, so rudely shaken by the illegal and 
criminal -acts of his predecessor — the notorious 
Cardoza. He has been for the past five years a 
Director in the Central National Bank of Co- 
lumbia, and is agent for the Piedmont and Ar- 
lington Life Insurance Company. He is a 
member of the Lutheran Church. Captain 
Leaphart is distinguished for his sterling integ- 
rity and uprightness of character ; he is of quiet, 
unassuming manners, and his erect carriage, 
empty coat-sleeve, and scars still plainly trace- 
able, bear eloquent testimony to the distin- 
guished part he bore in the recent struggle, and 
give a certain soldierly bearing to his manners 
and address. 

He has never married, but his manly, straight- 
forward and generous character and fine social 
qualities have endeared him to hosts of friends, 
and both in his official and private character he 
has earned golden opinions from all. 



GENERAL JAMES SIMONS. 

South Carolina. 

'AMES SIMONS was born in Charleston, 
S. C, May 9th, 1813. The Simons 
family is of Huguenot descent, having 
migrated to this country on the revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes, on Octo- 
ber 22d, 16S5, and settled in the French quarter, 
some thirty miles from Charleston, S. C. His 
grandfather had a large family, no less than ten 
grown sons following him to his grave. His 
father, James Simons, was a major of cavalry in 
the Revolutionary army, aide-de-camp to Count 




Pulaski at the battle of Savannah, and with him 
when he received the wound of which he after- 
wards died, and chief of staff to General William 
Washington, of the Virginia Continental line ; 
he participated in the preceding battles, and espe- 
cially those of Cowpens, Eutaw, etc., at the 
latter of which he was severely wounded, receiv- 
ing two ounce bullets in his hip, from the effects 
of which he never thoroughly recovered ; at the 
close of the war he was appointed, by General 
George Washington, Collector of Customs at 
Charleston, which position he resigned on the 
accession of President Jefferson ; he died, De- 
cember 31st, 1815, having had sixteen children, 
of whom the subject of this sketch is the 
youngest ; the only other survivor of the ninety 
descendants of his grandfather being an elder- 
sister, who married Colonel Henry Beekman 
Armstrong, the son of General Armstrong, and 
now lives in the State of New York. His 
mother's family were of Scotch descent, her 
great-grandfather being the Rev. Thomas Bos- 
ton, a distinguished divine, the author of "The 
Fourfold State " and " The Crook in the Lot," 
books very much esteemed at that time among 
the Scotch congregations. One of his uncles, 
Keating Simons, was on the staff of General 
Marion, and after the war President of the South 
Carolina Bank; and his son, Keating Lewis 
Simons, a most distinguished lawyer, of whom 
the great Langdon Cheves, in a letter to the 
eloquent William Crafts, of October 9th, 1819, 
acknowledging a copy of his eulogy on Mr. 
Simons, said: "He would have been a great 
acquisition to the Bench. His solid talent and 
extensive legal learning (for he was undoubtedly 
a more learned lawyer than any of his cotempo- 
raries)," etc., etc. 

His elder brother, the Rev. James Dewar 
Simons, was rector of St. Philip's, Charleston. 
Another, Charles Dewar Simons, was Professor 
of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy at the 
South Carolina College, Columbia, and was after- 
wards drowned in the Haugabaugh swamp, near 
Columbia, when making a visit to his father ; 
and another, Henry Massingberd Simons, an 
officer of the First Artillery of the United States 



4 3 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



army, who served in the same company with 
Jacob Bond Q'On, James Hamilton and Jacob 
Warley during and after the war with England, 
in 1812, et sec]. Several other brothers were 
men of marked character and ability, but passed 
their lives as private gentlemen. 

His mother died in 1825, and in March, 
1827, he was sent to a school at Pendleton, in 
the mountains, kept by Henry King McClin- 
tock, a New England gentleman, and one of the 
most excellent teachers of his day, who bore a 
very high reputation and at whose school some 
of the most eminent South Carolinians were pre- 
pared for college. After three years spent at 
this academy he entered the Charleston College, 
of which Dr. Adams was then the President, 
and after eighteen months study he removed to 
the South Carolina College, Columbia, of which 
Dr. Cooper was President, and Dr. Henry, 
Henry Junius Nott, and James Wallace were 
then the leading professors. His class at the 
college was a large one, numbering sixty-three, 
and among those who afterwards did honor to 
their Alma Mater may be mentioned Elisha 
Hamlin, a distinguished young lawyer of Green- 
ville ; Langdon Cheves, an eminent jurist and 
State reporter; Dr. De Leon, afterwards Chief 
Medical Director in the Confederate army ; L. 
D. Hallonguist, Abraham McWillie, brother of 
the Governor of Alabama, William Alston 
Owens, a born orator ; John T. Chappell, a 
lawyer ; Henry Gray, a lawyer, afterwards of 
Mississippi, C. C. Hay, a poet and scholar; 
James Hamilton, Jr., Dr. Alfred Raoul, physi- 
cian ; Samuel W. Rice, a judge, and afterwards 
Chief-Justice of Alabama; General James Tra- 
pier, of the Confederate army; Dr. Wardlaw, 
of Abbeville; Dr. Westcott, B. Williamson, a 
well-known planter, and many others. Young 
Simons pursued his studies with unusual dili- 
gence, and from natural predilection excelled 
more especially in his classical attainments. 
The contest for the honors of his class narrowed 
itself down to Elisha Hamlin and himself, and 
after keen competition resulted in favor of James 
Simons. In the early days of the college it had 
been customary to assign the valedictory to the 



student carrying off the first honors of the class, 
and the salutatory to the next highest, but some 
years before 1833 it had been determined, in 
order to excite to greater emulation in classical 
elegance, to reverse the order and award the 
salutatory to the student attaining to the first 
honors in his class. This circumstance led to 
some misunderstanding at a subsequent period, 
when, in a compilation of the records of the 
college by a gentleman who was unaware of the 
alteration, Mr. Elisha Hamlin, as having deliv- 
ered the valedictory, was credited with the first 
honor in place of Mr. James Simons. Upon 
this the latter applied to Dr. Henry, as the only 
professor at that time cognizant of the whole 
circumstances, and received a reply from which 
we extract the closing paragraph: " The contest 
between yourself and Mr. Hamlin, a gentleman 
of great worth and proficiency, was a very even 
one, but as a decision one way or other could 
not be waved, the salutatory, or first honor, was 
assigned you as being the more accurate classi- 
cal scholar. I add, with pleasure, that your dis- 
tinction was well earned, and won after a long 
and arduous struggle." 

During his collegiate term there existed two 
literary societies, the Euphradian and the 
Clairosophic, of the latter of which he was 
President, and, in spite of the unsleeping watch- 
fulness of the officers appointed for the purpose, 
passed through his term without a fine — a most 
unusual circumstance. The members were a 
most distinguished bod)', and bore themselves 
with as much dignity and propriety as the legis- 
lators over whom Mr. Simons afterwards pre- 
sided ; he was the successor in the Presidency 
of this society to Governor Means, of South Caro- 
lina, who was subsequently killed in the civil 
war, and the predecessor of General W. E. 
Martin, afterwards Clerk of the Senate. He 
graduated December 3d, 1S33, and at once 
commenced the study of the law under the late 
Judge Frost and his partner, George W. Egle- 
ston, and was admitted to the bar February 
24th, 1S35. His examination took place before 
the separate Court of Appeals existing at that 
time, consisting of Judge David Johnson, after- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



485 



wards Chancellor and Governor of South Caro- 
lina in 1846 ; Judge John Belton O'Neill, subse- 
quently Chief-Justice, and William Harper, 
Chancellor, and he had the gratification of hear- 
ing afterwards, through Mr. Thomas J. Gantt, 
the Register in Equity, that Judge O'Neill had 
noted his examination as " very excellent," an 
honor which did much to stimulate his ambition 
to excel in his profession. Among those who 
were admitted to the bar at the same time were 
Andrew Gordon Magrath, afterwards District 
Judge of the United States and subsequently of 
the Confederate States, and Governor of South 
Carolina, in 1S65 ; Robert N. Gourdin, L. D. 
Hallonguist, C. W. Crouch, H. A. Jones, of 
Abbeville ; Edward Carroll, D. C. Gibson, F. 
Q. McHugh, and others. He commenced the 
practice of his profession in the office of his pre- 
ceptors, Egleston and Frost, with whom he re- 
mained for two years, and then established him- 
self on his own account. About this time he 
became intimately related with Major Samuel 
AVragg, a Cantabrigian and scholar, with one of 
whose daughters, Sarah Lowndes, he intermar- 
ried on December 17th, 1835. Major Wragg 
being an able controversialist and familiar with 
the exciting constitutional subjects of the day, 
Mr. Simons imbibed from him a broad and 
liberal view of the questions of nullification and 
secession ; much enthusiasm at that time having 
been excited amongst Southern people by the 
writings and speeches of the great Calhoun. 
Having a large family connection among the 
planters he at once acquired an extensive prac- 
tice, more particularly in the Chancery and 
Equity departments of his profession, and sought 
to extend the influence and jurisdiction of the 
Court of Equity as far as practicable, and ac- 
quired such eminence as an equity lawyer that 
a distinguished jurisconsult of the Charleston 
bar paid him the high compliment of saying 
that he was "the most accomplished equity 
pleader at the bar." 

In 1S42 he was elected to the House of Rep- 
resentatives for Charleston, and continued a 
member for twenty years successively, never 
having been defeated at the polls. In 1S50 he 



was elected Speaker of the House, and dis- 
charged the duties of that office with such effi- 
ciency and discretion that he was re-elected 
from time to time without opposition, and for 
twelve regular and five extra sessions he held the 
office of Speaker, and during all this time there 
was but one appeal from his ruling, and in that 
he was afterwards sustained. The question arose 
whether the office of Treasurer of the Lower 
Division of the State should be abolished, a 
specific majority of two-thirds being requisite to 
carry the bill. The requisite specific majority 
was not obtained. A member who had voted 
with the larger number moved reconsideration ; 
the Chair declined the motion because he was 
not of the majority required by the constitution. 
Then another member who was of the smaller 
number presented the same motion ; the Speaker 
declined because he was confessedly of the mi- 
nority. An appeal was taken from the Speaker's 
decision, and an earnest debate followed, in 
which some of the most influential members 
took part, notably, J. J. McCarter and J. J. 
Pettigrew, who sustained the Speaker, and 
the House eventually decided in favor of the 
Chair, notwithstanding that the vote on the bill 
was within one of the constitutional majority; 
the bill was consequently lost. The Judiciary 
Committee subsequently reported a rule to suit 
such a case, and each House adopted it, so that 
his ruling has been the practice ever since. 

Such was the high and honorable character 
of the House of Representatives in ante bellum 
times that Mr. Simons esteemed it an honor and 
a pleasure to preside over their deliberations. 
One example will suffice : the claim of the Le- 
gionaries of the Duke of Luxembourg against 
the State of South Carolina had been pressed by 
the Count de Choiseul, then Consul of France 
to the United States, and, when the question 
was about to be put, a distinguished member 
rose and asked to be excused from voting, inas- 
much as he was of counsel for the claimant. 
As an evidence of the esteem in which he was 
held, it should be mentioned that at an early 
period of his life, not having then reached the 
age of thirty years, upon the death of Henry 



486 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Junius Nott, a distinguished Professor of Roman 
Literature and Belles Lettres in the South Caro- 
lina College, Mr. Simons was nominated as his 
successor by Professor Henry, who was one of 
the professors under whom he had graduated. 
The communication between the cities of Charles- 
ton and Columbia was not so close at that period, 
which ante-dated the railroad and the telegraph, 
and as the Board of Trustees were then in ses- 
sion for the purpose of filling the vacancy, and 
it could not be ascertained in time whether or 
not his election would have met his approval 
and acceptance, it was debated by some of his 
personal friends then in Columbia, among whom 
was the late General Edward H. Edwards, and 
at their request Professor Henry recalled the 
nomination for the reason given by them that 
his professional prospects were such that it would 
not be just to withdraw him from the profession 
upon the practice of which he had entered with 
such flattering prospects of success. These gen- 
tlemen who were his intimates did not know, 
however, that his tastes and his ambition would 
have led him to the service of his Alma Mater. 
Such was the influence of Professor Henry at 
that time that there can be little doubt his nomi- 
nation would have been followed by his election. 
In like manner upon the reorganization of this 
college in June, 1857, it was the desire of cer- 
tain friends of Mr. Simons to place him in the 
presidency. Chief among these were the late 
Governor J. H. Means, who had been associated 
with him as a fellow-student in the same college, 
and had remained through life his affectionate 
and devoted friend, Governor John L. Man- 
ning, Chief- Justice O'Neill, and other Trustees. 
Governor Means well knew that a high sense of 
duty would have compelled an acceptance if an 
election had been had without his knowledge. 
He, therefore, so carefully concealed his inten- 
tion that Mr. Simons, in entire ignorance of it, 
attended the meeting of the Board of Trustees 
and for the Presidency cast his vote for Hon. 
David F. Jamison, afterwards President of the 
Convention of the people of South Carolina 
which led the secession movement. This vote 
alone prevented the requisite number which 



would have placed Mr. Simons in the position 
which, of all others, he considered the highest 
within the gift of the State and which he valued 
accordingly. He was thoroughly familiar with 
the government of the institution, having been 
ex officio a Trustee while Speaker of the House, 
and retained as such, for some years after his 
retirement from the chair, by election of the 
Legislature. 

It has been said that " no man can travel so 
fast that fate will not overtake him," and in this 
instance his own act was made the means of 
defeating the highest aspirations of his heart. 
It was a position for which he was pre-eminently 
qualified by his learning and his training, his 
high-toned sense of honor and irreproachable 
character ; and his impress upon the rising gen- 
eration would have had a most happy influence. 
Mr. Simons had no desire for political prefer- 
ment; the Speaker's chair in the House of Rep- 
resentatives fully filled its measure. His popu- 
larity would have placed him in the National 
Legislature had he desired it. His ambition 
was first to fill the Professor's chair in the col- 
lege of the State, and next to have worn the 
ermine upon her bench, more especially that of 
the Court of Chancery. We have seen how the 
first was lost : the second was as readily attain- 
able ; at any time during his term as Speaker 
and subsequently he could have been elected to 
fill one of the many vacancies occurring during 
that long period. On four occasions, twice for 
the Law and twice for the Chancery Courts, was 
he urged by his friends to consent to an elec- 
tion, but, although it was the dearest wish of his 
heart, he declined, and for reasons which we 
regard as evidencing too nice a sense of honor 
to be withheld here. Though his practice was 
large and lucrative, yet, as he had commenced 
practice without fortune, and was .dependent 
upon his professional means for the support and 
education of a large family, for whom he pro- 
vided with rare generosity, and who were accus- 
tomed to the luxuries of life which usually follow 
the appliances of wealth, he thought he could 
not afford to surrender a large practice for the 
much-to-be-diminished income affixed to the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



437 



salary of a judge. Besides it had been always a 
settled conviction with him that a lawyer should 
never be a pecuniary debtor, and how much was 
this conviction intensified when applied to a 
judge ; the knowledge of an indebtedness so 
trifling that it would scarce have been thought 
of by another decided him to decline, and he 
sacrificed steadily and continuously this his high 
ambition to his higher sense of propriety. It 
has always been a source of regret to those 
most intimately acquainted with him that his 
services upon the bench, and more particularly 
upon the Chancery bench, should have been lost 
to the State. His attainments in his profession, 
the result of long, close, persistent study, his 
knowledge of settled principles and decided 
cases, his learning in the science, his large 
opportunity for the application of theory to 
practice, in an unusually large experience, with 
his intuitive sense of justice, would have made 
him an ornament to the bench and left his name 
to be associated worthily with those of Harper, 
Dunkin, Johnson, Wardlaw, Dargan, and other 
great ones whose names have become historic 
as expounders of equity jurisprudence in South 
Carolina. Mr.. Simons' popularity, which kept 
him so long in the Legislature, was further mani- 
fested in his rise through every grade of militia 
service then very popular in the State. He was 
scarcely initiated into his chosen profession 
before he was called into commission in a vol- 
unteer company, composed of prominent young 
men of the city of Charleston, as second in 
command, and afterwards elected Captain. He 
was subsequently elected Major of the regiment 
of artillery, and was afterwards its Colonel. 
Throughout the period he was associated with 
the regiment he gave much thought and time to 
its improvement and advancement. The militia 
laws of South Carolina required frequent drills, 
parades, and even encampments biennially, and 
arduous as were the duties of an officer they 
were consonant with his tastes and disposition ; 
he had a natural fondness for military life, per- 
haps an inheritance from his father. His mili 
• tary services, therefore, were not only freely 
given but pleasant to him, and the improvement 



and progress of the regiment was, in no little 
measure, due to his fondness for the service and 
his skill as an officer. Upon the death of Briga- 
dier-General Cruikshank, in 1S5S, Mr. Simons 
was elected to the command of the Fourth 
Brigade, South Carolina Militia, and held that 
position when, on the 9th April, 1861, he was 
ordered, by Governor Pickens, the commander- 
in-chief of the militia of South Carolina, to pro- 
ceed to Morris Island and take command of the 
forces at that post ; the bombardment of Fort 
Surnter commenced at the early hour of 3.40 
the next morning. The following communica- 
tion was received by General Simons from Gen- 
eral Beauregard : 

" Head-quarters, Prov'l Army, Confed. States, 
"Charleston, S. C, April 301/1, 1S61. 

" General: I have to acknowledge the receipt 
of your lucid report of the 29th inst., relative to 
the condition of the forces and batteries under 
your command, on Morris Island, on being re- 
lieved by Brigadier-General Nelson, the same 
day, in pursuance to special order No. 99. I 
beg to thank you, General, for the valuable 
assistance of yourself and staff, in organizing 
and preparing for the attack on Fort Sumter, 
and to prevent a landing from the enemy's fleet, 
the forces under your command, and to thank 
you also for your efficient aid and gallant con- 
duct on that memorable occasion. I hope it will 
again be my good fortune to have yourself and 
command under my orders should the enemy 
ever attempt to effect a landing on the shores 
of this gallant State. 

"I remain, General, with the highest con- 
sideration, your most obedient servant, 
" G. T. Beauregard, 
" Brigadier-General Commanding. 
" Brigadier-General James Simons, 
"Charleston, S. C." 

General Simons was a member of the Conven- 
tion of the Democratic party of the United States, 
which met in Charleston in i860, and Chair- 
man of the delegation from South Carolina 
therein. He was put in nomination as a Dele- 



4S8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



gate to the memorable State Convention of 
1S60, but declined; and in 1S62 he refused to 
return to the Legislature although urged by his 
friends to do so, and thus voluntarily gave up 
the high office of Speaker of the House of Rep- 
resentatives in which he was so long distin- 
guished and universally admitted to have been 
without a superior. Since then he has not held 
any public station whatever, but has devoted 
himself to the practice of his profession and to 
the society of his friends. At the request of the 
Chamber of Commerce of Charleston, he formed 
one of a committee of gentlemen who accompa- 
nied a delegation from the Tax-payers' Conven- 
tion to visit Washington and confer with Presi- 
dent Grant upon the deplorable condition of 
affairs then existing in South Carolina. In this 
connection it should be mentioned, however, 
that upon the passage of the Act of Congress to 
create separate Circuit Judges, General Simons 
received a most nattering testimonial from the 
bar of Columbia and Charleston, and thereupon 
applied for appointment to the judgeship of the 
Fourth Circuit. He was also flatteringly nomi- 
nated by some of his numerous friends for the 
office of Chief-Justice of South Carolina at the 
recent election, but did not suffer his name to be 
used as a candidate. It is a striking fact that, 
although so long and laboriously a most faithful 
public servant, General Simons has never sought 
nor held any public position to which was 
attached pecuniary emoluments, but his service 
has been freely and generously given to the pro- 
motion of all matters tending to the advance- 
ment and benefit of the city and State which 
gave him birth and which he loved with all the 
ardor of true loyalty. Early in life General 
Simons was elected a member of the Cincinnati, 
and was soon after appointed Secretary of the 
Society in South Carolina, which office he held 
for nine years, and with much labor prepared a 
thorough analytical index of its proceedings 
dating back to 1784. During the late civil war 
this work was unfortunately lost, together with 
the archives of the Society, in the conflagration 
which followed the surrender of Columbia. In 
1854, through his influence and exertions, the 



society was induced to resume an actual repre- 
sentation at the general meeting of the Cincin- 
nati, which had been suspended for twenty- 
seven years. He was one of the Delegates 
named, and the society has ever since been 
represented and he one of her representatives at 
the triennial meetings of the general society, 
and has been said by a most distinguished mem- 
ber that much credit is due to him for the pros- 
perity of this venerable and venerated body. 
General Simons was for some years Vice-Presi- 
dent, and upon the death of the late venerable 
and esteemed Henry A. Desaussure, he was 
unanimously chosen President of the Society of 
Carolina, which office he still retains. In 1872, 
at the general meeting of the Cincinnati in Bos- 
ton, he was elected Vice-President of the Gen- 
eral Society, and has been re-elected at the sub- 
sequent meetings, at the last of which the 
following gentlemen were chosen officers, viz. : 
the Hon. Hamilton Fish, of New York, Presi- 
dent; the Hon. James Simons, of South Caro- 
lina, Vice-President; George AV. Harris, of 
Pennsylvania, Secretary ; R. J. Manning, of 
Maryland, Assistant-Secretary; Alexander Ham- 
ilton, of New York, Treasurer, and William B. 
Dayton, of New Jersey, Assistant- Treasurer. 
He has from time to time delivered a number 
of addresses and orations on various public 
occasions, among which an address to the Poly- 
technic and Calliopean Societies at one of their 
annual celebrations, entitled, " On the Forma- 
tion and Publication of Opinions," from its 
bold and original train of thought excited much 
attention and discussion. 

General Simons still continues actively en- 
gaged in the practice of his profession. He is 
not fond of change and has occupied his present 
office for nearly the third of a century, and, 
strange to say, it is the same as was used as a 
law office in the last century by his distinguished 
kinsman, Keating Lewis Simons. Though some- 
what past the prime of life he still enjoys it 
surrounded by a devoted family ; his eldest son, 
lames Simons, Jr., is associated with him in his 
practice, and has already made his mark in his 
profession; and another. Dr. Manning Simons, 




^/leToC-^OA^AJh, 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



489 



has reached considerable distinction in the medi- 
cal profession in the same city. Himself of 
commanding- appearance, ease, courtesy and 
dignity of manner, tenderness of heart, strength 
and durability of friendship, although he has 
outlived most of the associates who started on 
the journey with him, he has yet attracted to him 
a host of younger men who esteem and love him, 
value his friendship, regarding him as one upon 
whose learning they can draw and upon whose 
experience they can rely, trustfully hoping 
that he may be spared yet many years as a true 
representative of the old Carolina gentleman. 
[General Simons died, April 26th, 1879.] 
"The name of Simons is with the people of 
Charleston ' Clarum et venerabi le nomen, ' great in 
science, great in medicine, great in the law, great 
in divinity, and amiable in all the duties and 
charities of life." [W. M. Crafts.] 




COL. T. L. BAYNE. 

Louisiana. 

'HOMAS LEVINGSTON BAYNE was 
born at Clinton, Jones county, Ga., 
August 4th, 1824. The Bayne family 
were among the original settlers on the 
eastern shore of Maryland, and in Vir- 
ginia. John Bayne, the grandfather of the sub- 
ject of this sketch, removed when quite young 
into Georgia, at an early period in the settle- 
ment of that State. He was prominently iden- 
tified with the early history of Georgia, and rep- 
resented Jones county in the State Legislature 
for sixteen years successively. His son, Charles 
Bayne, married a daughter of Charles Bowin, a 
well-known planter of Jones county, and both 
parents died at an early age while their son, 
Thomas L. Bayne, was quite a child. On the 
death of his parents he passed under the control 
of his maternal uncle, Colonel Edward Bowin, 
of Butler county, Ala., a gentleman of high 
character and intelligence, who spared no trouble 
nor expense in obtaining the best teachers for 



his nephew, who was reared as one of his own 
family. Mr. Bayne was fortunate in having his 
early education intrusted to William Lowry, a 
graduate of Dublin University, Ireland, and a 
most accomplished scholar, who prepared him 
for college, and to whose thorough scholarship 
and conscientious discharge of his duties Mr. 
Bayne attributes much of his subsequent success. 

He entered Yale College in September, 1843, 
and graduated thence with distinction in 1847. 
He received a high appointment for commence- 
ment bestowed by the faculty of the college, 
and was valedictory class orator — B. Gratz 
Brown, of Missouri, being his competitor. He 
was also President of the Calliopean Society, 
one of the Literary Societies at Yale. Among 
his classmates at college may be mentioned F. 
W. M. Holliday, now Governor of Virginia ; 
John M. Berry, now Judge of the Supreme 
Court of Wisconsin ; Daniel Thew Wright, at 
present Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio ; 
Charles F. Sanford, now Judge of the Superior 
Court of New York; B. Gratz Brown, afterwards 
United States Senator and candidate for Vice- 
President on the Greeley ticket in 1871 ; John 
C. Burch, the present Secretary of the United 
States Senate ; John Donald Smith, of Maryland ; 
and many other distinguished gentlemen. After 
graduation, Mr. Bayne returned to Alabama, 
and after a brief stay went to New Orleans, 
where he studied law under Thomas Allen 
Clarke, a distinguished lawyer of that city, then 
associated with Thomas Slidell, afterwards Chief- 
Justice of Louisiana. When he entered Mr. 
Clarke's office, he found there, as students, Oliver 
H. Perry, son of Commodore M. C. Perry, and 
A. Oakey Hall — Mr. Perry afterwards removed 
to California, and Mr. Hall to New York, of 
which city lie afterwards became Mayor, besides 
holding other important offices. 

Mr. Bayne was admitted to the bar in the fall 
of 1850, and after remaining some time in Mr. 
Clarke's office, became his partner in the fol- 
lowing year. In 1852 and 1853 he became 
Acting City Attorney of New Orleans, as a sub- 
stitute for Thomas R. Woolfe, during that gen- 
tleman's absence from the city in the summers 



490 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of those years. In 1862 he went into active 
military service, as a private, in the Fifth Com- 
pany of the Washington Artillery of New Or- 
leans, which was largely composed of gentlemen 
of high social standing ; the members were 
elected by ballot, a small number of votes 
excluding. Mr. Bayne served with the Fifth 
Company of the Washington Artillery in the 
Southwest until after the battle of Shiloh, at 
which he was severely wounded, being shot 
through the right arm while serving one of the 
guns, and was consequently disabled from fur- 
ther immediate service. 

Brigadier-General Randall L. Gibson, who 
had studied law in Mr. Bayne's office, offered 
him, just prior to the battle of Shiloh, a posi- 
tion on his staff, which was declined, the general 
tone and spirit of the Fifth Company, at that 
early period of the war, being against accepting 
any position which would separate its members. 
Mr. Bayne returned to New Orleans, and when, 
in April, 1S62, Commodore Farragut's fleet 
arrived in front of that city, he left for South 
Carolina. 

After locating his family and remaining 
sufficiently long to recover from his wound, he 
left for Richmond, Va., where he was appointed 
Captain of Artillery, and assigned to ordnance 
duty with his brother-in-law, General Gorgas, 
Chief of Ordnance in the Confederate service. 
He was afterwards promoted to Major, and sub- 
sequently to Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, 
and was appointed Chief of the Bureau of For- 
eign Supplies, reporting directly to the Secretary 
of War. At Richmond he was brought largely 
in contact with the leading men in the civil and 
military service of the Southern Confederacy. 
At an interview between President Davis and 
General Lee, which he was invited to attend, 
the question of the right of the city of Wilming- 
ton, N. C, to enforce quarantine against vessels 
bringing in meat and other supplies for the army 
was discussed. General Lee finally suggested 
that, as it was imperative that he should have the 
supplies for his troops, he could solve the ques- 
tion as to quarantine by removing the inhabi- 
tants out of the city and away from all possible 



danger. This suggestion might be useful in the 
present discussion of the important question of 
quarantine. 

When it became necessary to evacuate Rich- 
mond, Colonel Bayne left with the other officers 
of the government for Danville, Va., where he 
remained until the surrender of General Lee at 
Appomattox, and from thence removed to Char- 
lotte, N. C, where the Confederate government 
was virtually dissolved. General Johnston and 
General Sherman had held their conference at 
Greensboro, N. C, in the presence of General 
Breckinridge ; after the truce of forty-eight 
hours, granted for the purpose, of communica- 
tion with Washington, had expired, General 
Breckinridge assembled the officers who con- 
stituted his staff, and in a touching farewell 
address practically relieved them from further 
duty in attendance upon him as Secretary of 
War. The several officers then departed to- 
wards their homes, and Colonel Bayne returned 
to New Orleans, where he resumed the practice 
of his profession with his former partner, Mr. 
Thomas Allen Clarke, with whom he continued 
to be associated until that gentleman's retirement 
from the bar in 1878. He has now as a partner 
Mr. Henry Renshaw, who was a student in his 
office for many years. Colonel Bayne has never 
been a candidate for any political position, but 
has always actively discharged his duties as a 
citizen. Like most of the officers of the army, 
he accepted the war as closed in 1865, and at 
once addressed himself to the restoration of his 
own means and to the revival of the prosperity 
of his State. He is President of the Washington 
Artillery Association, an organization formed 
soon after the close of the war for the purpose 
of providing for the poor and wounded con- 
nected with the battalion, and also for erecting 
a monument to its dead, and preserving its his- 
torical record. Colonel Bayne was married, 
December, 1853, to Maria Gayle, daughter of 
Hon. John Gayle, formerly Governor of Ala- 
bama, member of Congress from the Mobile 
District, and Judge of the United States District 
Court. He has six children, three boys and 
three trirls. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



491 



JOSIAH SIBLEY, Esq. 

Georgia. 

p-J OSIAH SIBLEY was born at Uxbridge, 
,41 Mass., April 1st, 1808, and is the son 
-.'J of Joel Sibley, farmer, of that place. 
The Sibleys are of Welsh extraction, 
three brothers of that name having emi- 
grated from Wales and settled in Massachusetts 
about the year 1650, and from one of these was 
descended Stephen Sibley, who was born in 
Sutton, Mass. ; his only son, Joel Sibley, mar- 
ried Lois Wood, daughter of Ezekiel Wood, of 
Uxbridge, Mass., and they had four sons, 
Amory, Royal, Josiah, and George N. Josiah's 
early education was received in the district 
school of his native town until 1821, when, at 
the early age of thirteen years, he went to Augusta, 
Ga., where his two elder brothers, Amory and 
Royal, were prominent merchants, and became 
a clerk in their establishment. Augusta was at 
this time a frontier town of 6,500 inhabitants, 
with but thirty brick buildings, and the govern- 
ment agents used frequently to purchase goods 
there for the Indians: it was even then the head- 
quarters of the cotton trade, and, as railroads 
were unknown, its communication with Savan- 
nah and the seacoast was entirely by steamboats 
and flat-boats on the river. No canal had then 
been projected, and the progress of the town 
seemed at a stand still until the commencement 
of the works in 1845, when a change for the 
better took place, which received a great impetus 
by the enlargement of the canal in 1872, and 
from that time until the present the city has 
rapidly increased until Augusta, with a popula- 
tion of 24,000, is unquestionably one of the 
wealthiest and most important cities in the 
South. In 1822 Royal Sibley died, while on a 
visit to his family at Uxbridge, Mass. Josiah 
continued as assistant to his brother Amory 
until 1828, when he entered into partnership 
with him and they commenced business as 
wholesale and retail merchants and cotton 
dealers, under the firm of A. & J. Sibley, in 
Hamburg, S. C., opposite Augusta, Ga., then 



a flourishing commercial town of some impor- 
tance. The railroad from Charleston to Ham- 
burg was one of the first built in the United 
States, and for a great number of years after its 
completion the South Carolina Railroad was 
refused permission to build a bridge across the 
Savannah river to connect with the Georgia 
lines, and eventually was compelled to pay 
$100,000 for the privilege. The firm carried 
on a prosperous business for many years, during 
which Hamburg was an extensive cotton depot, 
receiving as much as from 50,000 to 70,000 
bales yearly, while at the present time not 1,000 
bales are sent there in a year. In 1849 Amory 
Sibley died, leaving a handsome estate to his 
family, having been for many years President 
of the Mechanics' Bank and one of the largest 
cotton merchants and shippers in the district. 
The business was carried on by Josiah as before, 
and in 1853 his eldest son, William C. Sibley, 
was taken into partnership under the style of 
J. Sibley & Son. In 1855 the business was 
removed to Augusta, and as his younger sons, 
Samuel, George R., and R. P., grew up they 
entered the firm from time to time, and the firm 
was altered to Josiah Sibley & Sons. Henry 
Sibley, his second son, lost his life during the 
war while on his way from Atlanta to Griffin ; 
in consequence of the crowded state of the cars 
he had been compelled to ride on the roof, and, 
while attempting to save the baggage of a sick 
soldier on the train, was thrown off and killed. 
After a long and prosperous career, Mr. Sibley 
retired from business in 1874, his firm having 
for many years previous conducted the largest 
cotton business in Augusta, both as shippers and 
on commission. In 1870, in conjunction with 
Mr. Langley and others, he established the 
Langley Manufacturing Company's cotton-mill, 
of which his son, William C. Sibley, is President, 
and still retains his interest in that factory. He 
was a Director of the Mechanics' Bank previous 
to and during the war, and for many years has 
been a Director of the Georgia Railroad, as well 
as having an interest in a large number of other 
railroads. In 1867 and 1868 he was a member 



49 2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



of the Augusta City Council, and during Mr. 
Allen's administration was a member of the 
committee who devised the scheme for retiring 
the bonds of the city by means of a sinking- 
fund, by which it is anticipated that the city 
debt will be extinguished in from ten to fifteen 
years. While he was a member of the City 
Council the enlargement of the canal was pro- 
jected, and he afterwards gave Mr. Estes the 
benefit of his influence and support in carrying 
out this important public work. He has also 
an interest in the Augusta Land Company, of 
which Mr. Estes is President, and is a member 
of the Orphan Asylum. He is a member and 
elder of the Presbyterian Church. 

Mr. Sibley is at present extensively engaged 
in planting, owning several plantations in 
Scriven county and other districts, besides a 
farm of three hundred and twenty acres near 
Marietta, Ga., where he passes the summer 
months with his family. The magnitude of his 
interests in real estate may be inferred from the 
fact that his taxes are assessed on over sixty 
thousand acres of land. He has been twice 
married: first, in 1S31, to Miss Sarah A. Crapon, 
daughter of William Crapon, merchant, of Rhode 
Island, and the second time, in 1S60, to Miss 
Emma E. Longstreet, daughter of Gilbert Long- 
street, of Augusta. His eldest son, William C. 
Sibley, is President and Treasurer of the Lang- 
ley Manufacturing Company ; Samuel H. Sibley 
is a partner in the firm of Day, Tannahill & 
Co., carriage and harness merchants of Augusta; 
George R. Sibley is a partner in the firm of 
Sibley &: Wheless, cotton merchants, of Augusta, 
and successors to J. Sibley & Sons, and is a 
representative of Richmond county in the State 
Legislature ; and Robert P. Sibley is a commis- 
sion merchant in Augusta. John A. Sibley, one 
of his youngest sons, is a student at the Virginia 
Institute, a military academy in Lexington, Va. 
His daughter, Sophia Sibley, is married to Gen- 
eral Charles E. Smedes, of New Orleans, and 
Alice Sibley is the widow of W. T. Williams, 
formerly of Augusta. Charles Sibley, son of 
his elder brother Amory, is Sheriff of Rich- 
mond county, Ga. 




MAJOR WILLIAM C. SIBLEY. 

Georgia. 

ILLIAM C. SIBLEY, eldest son of Josiah 
Sibley, was born in Augusta, Ga., May 
3d, 1832. He received his education 
K^lp at private schools, and was prepared 
^ for college at the Richmond County 
Academy, Augusta; but being destined for a 
mercantile career he decided to forego a colle- 
giate course, and entered his father's store in 
Hamburg, S. C, in 1S4S, being then sixteen 
years old. He commenced in the most subor- 
dinate position, but in the following year had 
made such progress as to be intrusted with the 
books of the firm. At twenty years of age, dur- 
ing a somewhat lengthened absence of his father, 
he had the sole charge of the business, and ac- 
quitted himself with great credit. In 1853 he 
was taken into partnership with his father under 
the style of J. Sibley & Son, and in 1855 the 
business was removed to Augusta, Ga. -In 1857 
his brother, Samuel H. Sibley, was admitted 
into the firm and the name changed to Josiah 
Sibley & Sons. In 1859 he became a member 
of the City Council of Augusta, in which he 
took a prominent part in advocating and subse- 
quently inaugurating the Augusta Water Works, 
which now supply the city with an abundant 
quantity of water. In November, 1861, he en- 
listed as a private in the Oglethorpe Infantry, 
Company B, and served for six months on the 
coast of Georgia. Their term of service having 
expired, he then volunteered in Caper's Battery 
of Artillery, but before he could join his com- 
pany he received a telegram from Brigadier- 
General John K. Jackson, of Augusta, then at 
Tupelo, Miss., offering him the position of 
Brigade Commissary on his staff with the rank 
of Captain. Accepting this appointment, he 
accompanied the expedition of General Bragg 
through Kentucky, and, although at times the 
army was under half rations during that cam- 
paign, he managed through his individual exer- 
tions to keep General Jackson's brigade on full 
rations, besides issuing rations from his supplies 
to several other brigades on the retreat from 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



493 



Kentucky. On their arrival at Knoxville, he 
had a wagon-load of wheat and some 2,800 lbs. 
of bacon still on hand. His arduous duties and 
the exposure during this campaign brought on 
an attack of chronic diarrhoea, notwithstanding 
which he attended to his duties as usual, keeping 
the brigade well supplied with provisions. In 
this campaign of six weeks he was reduced fifty- 
nine pounds in weight by this attack, and at its 
conclusion, being too ill to remain in camp, was 
transferred to the hospital at Augusta. Rejoin- 
ing his command the day after the battle of 
Murfreesboro, he was again prostrated by the 
disease and confined to his quarters for some 
weeks at Bridgeport, Ala. On his recovery he 
was transferred to Chattanooga, where he was 
on duty until that city was evacuated ; he re- 
mained in the field until the army fell back to 
Dalton, when, being broken down by a return 
of his old disease, he was furloughed and sent 
home, and finally retired from active service in 
1863. In 1S64, at his own request, he was 
placed on duty at Augusta as Post Commissary, 
with the rank of Major, dating back to General 
Bragg's Kentucky campaign, and filled that po- 
sition until the close of the war. For several 
weeks after the surrender, at the request, first of 
General Upton and afterwards of General Moly- 
neux of the United States army, he continued to 
act as Commissary, issuing rations to the Con- 
federate soldiers returning from Lee's and John- 
ston's armies en route to their homes and to 
the hospitals in Augusta. 

In 1865 he withdrew from the firm, George 
R. Sibley being admitted in his place, and re- 
moved to New Orleans, where he became a 
member of the firm of Sibley, Guion & Co. 
This firm was dissolved January 1st, 1868, and 
Mr. Sibley continued in the shipping and com- 
mission business on his own account in New 
Orleans until the spring of 1870, when he was 
unanimously chosen President of the Langley 
Manufacturing Company, then just organized. 
He consequently removed to Augusta, where 
the financial business of the company is con- 
ducted, and at the same time was associated with 
B. S. Dunbar as buyers of cotton on commis- 



sion, under the firm of Dunbar & Sibley. This 
firm was dissolved in April, 1878, and from that 
time Mr. Sibley has given his whole time to the 
interests of the Langley Manufacturing Com- 
pany. This company was organized in March, 

1870, the factory being situated at Langley, S. C, 
about eight miles from Augusta, Ga., where the 
general management is conducted. In July, 

1871, a heavy loss was sustained by the carrying 
away of the clam, then all but finished, and 
much delay was experienced in commencing 
operations. Notwithstanding this drawback the 
mill was in full operation at the end of March, 

1872, and continued a prosperous career until 
1876, when some $19,000 was lost by a fire. 
The capital of the company is $400,000, all of 
which and more was expended before the mill 
was in full operation, so that the company com- 
menced business in debt and with no commer- 
cial capital. Up to December 31st, 1876, the 
interest paid amounted to $29,000, while the 
damages done to the Bath Paper Mill Company, 
by an accident to their dam, cost them $14,000. 
The company has paid in dividends, to July 
15th, 1878, $144,000, and at that date had, to 
the credit of profit and loss, the sum of $149,000 
to use as a commercial capital. The net earn- 
ings for the six months ending June 30th, 1878, 
were $24,023 j 3 B 3 , or six per cent, on the capital 
for that half year. The mill, which is a two- 
storied building, 227 feet by 106 feet, contains 
328 looms and 10,560 spindles. The extent of 
the company's land is 4,500 acres, and, besides 
the mill, there is a cotton warehouse, gas-house, 
and all the necessary out-buildings. The water- 
power is sufficient to double the present ma- 
chinery, and this extension is contemplated at 
no distant day. The company has erected a 
village of over one hundred houses on their 
land at Langley, named after the promoter of 
the company, and there is now a population of 
over 800 inhabitants where eight years ago there 
was not a dozen people. The number of opera- 
tives averages about 330, of whom 122 are males 
and 208 females ; nine-tenths of them are na- 
tives of the Southern States, and, as a class, they 
are pronounced fully equal, if not superior, to 



494 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the best Northern operatives. The factory is in 
operation eleven hours a day, and the wages' 
paid average §3,000 per fortnight. The pro- 
duct for 1877 was 6,221,512 yards of sheetings, 
shirtings and drills ; the cotton consumed was 
5,426 bales, weighing 2,460,800 pounds, and 
the value about §400,000. The goods find a 
ready sale all over the United States and Canada, 
and considerable quantities are exported to Ger- 
many, Africa, etc., etc. The company fur- 
nished goods for the United States government 
supplies to the Indians in the years 1875, 1876, 
and 1877. Mr. Sibley is a Director of the 
■ Bank of Augusta, and a Director of the Au- 
gusta Land Company. He is a member of the 
Presbyterian Church, and a Deacon of the First 
Presbyterian Church, Augusta, of which the 
Rev. Dr. Irvine is the minister. 

He married, November 7th, i860, Jane E. 
Thomas, daughter of Judge G. E. Thomas, of 
Columbus, Ga., and has nine children, six boys 
and three girls. 

JUDGE E. T. MERRICK. 

Louisiana. 

? DWIN T. MERRICK was born in Wil- 
braham, Mass. The Merrick family is 
of Welsh descent, and it is supposed 
that their descent can be traced back 
to about the year 1200. Thomas Mer- 
rick, one of the original settlers and proprietors 
of Springfield, Mass., came to the province of 
Massachusetts in 1634 and settled in Springfield 
in 1 641. From him was descended (first) 
Thomas Merrick, Jr. ; (second) Deacon David 
Merrick; (third) Jonathan Merrick, a wealthy 
farmer and officer in the militia during the 
Revolutionary war, who assisted at the capture 
of General Burgoyne ; and (fourth) Thomas 
Merrick, the father of the subject of this sketch. 
He married Anna Brewer, daughter of Charles 
Brewer, the owner of considerable estate at 
Wilbraham, and noteworthy as one of the foun- 
ders of the Primitive Methodists in New Eng- 
land, to whom his hospitable house was a home. 
Thomas Merrick, the fourth in descent, in 




America, had three sons, of whom William W. 
Merrick, Esq., is still living on his farm at 
Wilbraham ; and Dr. Daniel D. Merrick, after 
practising medicine fourteen or fifteen years in 
the Felicianas, La., died in 1853, at the close 
of the yellow fever epidemic of that year. He 
was unusually successful in the treatment of that 
terrible scourge, and died from the effects of 
attending a patient in a house where the bed- 
ding, used by a previous sufferer from the dis- 
ease, had imprudently been allowed to remain. 
Susan Brewer, maternal aunt of E. T. Mer- 
rick, who subsequently married Captain David 
Thomas, the father of Mrs. E. T. Merrick, was 
born in Wilbraham, Mass., January, 1790. She 
early imbibed the spirit of Methodism and de- 
voted herself to the special education of youth. 
She established private schools in New York 
and Baltimore, and was for two years a teacher 
in the New York Wesleyan Academy, New York, 
where, becoming a member of the family of 
the Rev. Dr. Bangs, she enjoyed unusual privi- 
leges of association with the great teachers of 
her religion. When the Wesleyan Academy at 
Wilbraham was successfully established by the 
eminent teacher, Dr. Fisk, she returned to her 
native village, after an absence of ten years, as 
preceptress of that institution. Two years after- 
wards she went South to take charge of the Ala- 
bama Conference Seminary at Tuscaloosa, Ala., 
and for five years enjoyed the highest reputation 
as an instructress of youth in that State, in which 
she established numerous schools. She then 
took charge of the Elizabeth Female Academy 
at Washington, Miss., and two years later, hav- 
ing married Captain David Thomas, of Jackson, 
La., her active duties as a teacher ceased. 
Through her instrumentality not less than sixty 
teachers were, from time to time, brought from 
the North into the Southern States. Well- 
merited tributes were paid to her unceasing 
labors in the cause of religious education by Dr. 
Fisk, who remarked that " Mrs. Thomas was 
a pioneer in the cause of religious education in 
the South;" and by Dr. Kennon, who said 
" That the whole State of Alabama was indebted 
to her for having brought into the field so many 




^T353^^W- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



495 



teachers of high religious character. ' ' She also 
contributed largely by her interest and influence 
to the ultimate success of Centenary College, 
Jackson, La. Mrs. Thomas gained almost as 
high a reputation as a writer as she had as a 
teacher, and was for many years a contributor 
to the Methodist Magazine, Youth's Magazine, 
Young Ladies' Companion, etc., etc., and corre- 
spondent of the New Orleans and North Caro- 
lina Advocates. In 1849 her husband died, and 
in 1857, although arrived at an age — sixty-seven 
— when most of her sex would have shrunk from 
an undertaking involving such exertion and so 
many risks, she crossed the Atlantic and made 
an extended tour of Europe. She visited Great 
Britain, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzer- 
land, Italy, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Greece and 
Austria, and on her return published the results 
of her observations in a volume which, while 
giving a graphic description of places made 
sacred by genius, heroism and antiquity, con- 
tains much to interest the scholar and the anti- 
quary. In July, 1876, while in the enjoyment 
of a hale and vigorous old age, she met with a 
fatal accident at Biloxi, Miss. ; stepping from 
one car to another while the train was in mo- 
tion, she missed her footing and was crushed 
beneath the wheels. She is buried in the beau- 
tiful cemetery called "the Dell," in her native 
town. 

Thomas Merrick dying while his children 
were of tender age, Edwin T. Merrick went to 
reside with his maternal uncle, Mr. Samuel 
Brewer, at Springfield, N. Y., where he received 
his primary education. Mr. Brewer was a 
magistrate and postmaster in that village, and 
died subsequently at a very great age, in Wis- 
consin. In 1828 Mr. Merrick returned to Wil- 
braham, where he entered the Wesleyan Acad- 
emy, taking a thorough classic course. Among 
his classmates at the academy were Oscar H. 
Shafter, of Vermont, who afterwards became 
eminent in one of the Western States ; Mr. 
Stebbins, subsequently a distinguished divine ; 
and many others who have since achieved dis- 
tinction. Bishop Keener, of New Orleans, was 
at that time in a junior class at the same insti- 



tution. Mr. Merrick commenced the study of 
the law under Mr. William Knight, of Wilbra- 
ham, and in 1832 removed to New Lisbon, 
Ohio, where he finished his legal studies under 
his uncle, Colonel A. L. Brewer, who subse- 
quently became an officer in the Federal army, 
and was killed in service by the accidental ex- 
plosion of a steamboat. 

Judge Merrick was admitted to the bar at 
Columbus, Ohio, in December, 1833, by a very 
able Bench, consisting of Judge Lane, an ac- 
complished scholar and most noble-minded 
gentleman, who afterwards endeared himself to 
the people of Ohio by his devotion to the sick 
in the terrible epidemic of cholera in 1850 ; 
Judge Wright, Judge Collet, and Judge Woods. 
He commenced the practice of his profession at 
Carrollton, Ohio, in 1834, and a year after- 
wards returned to New Lisbon, where he took 
charge of the legal business of his uncle, then 
about to retire from practice. Shortly after- 
wards he formed a partnership with Mr. Wil- 
liam E. Russell, who soon thereafter retired 
from the profession. In 1838 he became asso- 
ciated with Mr. James H. Muse, and removed 
to Clinton, La. Before practising in Louisiana 
it became necessary for him to study the civil 
law, that State being the only one in the Union 
in which the civil law has been retained as the 
basis of jurisprudence. The intercourse between 
the people of Louisiana and the citizens of other 
States have given rise, in consequence of the 
dissimilarity of the two systems of law, to more 
numerous and intricate questions of conflict of 
laws than in the courts of any other State. He 
was admitted to the bar of Louisiana in March, 
1839, Judge Eustis, who was then on the Bench, 
signing his diploma. He rapidly acquired an 
extensive practice, and so great was his reputa- 
tion among the citizens of Clinton and its 
vicinity, that no case of any importance was 
litigated without Mr. Merrick being retained on 
one side or the other. One of the most remarka- 
ble cases in which he was engaged at this period 
of his career was that of McCord & Co. vs. The 
West Feliciana Railroad Company, in which 
$530,000 was involved. The plaintiffs, who 



49 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



were the contractors for the construction of the 
road, but a firm of very little responsibility, 
endeavored to compel payment for the contract 
price of the whole work done, and to be done, 
under the pretence that the railroad company 
had neglected to pay them according to the 
contract, and thus deprived them of their pro- 
fits. The distinguished counsel for the plain- 
tiffs, Judges Morgan, Boyle, and Ratliff, on one 
occasion made a most strenuous effort to force a 
trial, at a time when the railroad company was 
unprepared to produce its evidence, but Mr. 
Merrick was sufficiently alert to the interests of 
his clients to frustrate these tactics, and after 
an appeal was taken to the Supreme Court, 
obtained a final decision in favor of the railroad 
company. The trial of this case before a jury 
was extended to the unprecedented length of 
within seven days of three months. It may be 
mentioned also that Mr. Merrick was, with his 
associate, Mr. Muse, engaged for the defence in 
Morgan 71s. Yarborough, the only suit for breach 
of promise of marriage ever brought in Louis- 
iana. Judge Isaac Johnson, afterwards Gover- 
nor of Louisiana, who for several years presided 
over the Third District Court, always spoke in 
the highest terms of his abilities and of his con- 
scientious discharge of his duties in cases before 
his court. 

In 1854 Mr. Merrick was elected Judge of the 
Seventh Judicial District of Louisiana — East and 
West Feliciana — and, by interchanging with 
Judge Waterson, held courts in St. Helena, 
Washington and St. Tammany. In St. Tam- 
many and Washington parish especially the cases 
for trial had accumulated greatly, and by clear- 
ing the docket he earned the gratitude of the 
litigants, and much popularity in the district. 

In June, 1855, at the request of the Feliciana 
bar he allowed his name to be used as a candidate 
for Chief-Justice of Louisiana, his competitors 
being John K. Elgee, Thomas H. Lewis, James 
M. Elam and Alfred Hennen, all gentlemen of 
great legal reputation. The districts in which 
he was known— East and West Feliciana, St. 
Tammany and Washington — were almost unani- 
mous in his support, but New Orleans was largely 



in favor of Mr. Elgee, the Democratic candidate, 
while Judge Merrick was an old-line Whig. The 
State at large, however, in spite of the support 
accorded to Messrs. Lewis and Elam, who were 
of similar political principles to his own, pro- 
nounced in his favor by a considerable majority. 
He presided over the Supreme Court for the first 
time at Monroe, La., in the summer of 1S55, 
and on taking his seat in the session of the court 
at New Orleans, in November, found his col- 
leagues engaged in the important Draining Com- 
pany case, in which a large amount was involved, 
and considerable feeling exhibited on account of 
the opposition to the drainage tax. The Asso- 
ciate Judges were equally divided as to the con- 
stitutionality of the charter of the Draining 
Company, formed in 1839, for the purpose of 
draining the swamps in the rear of the city of 
New Orleans, and the Chief-Justice settled the 
question on the ground that the health of the 
citizen was one of the most obvious cares in- 
trusted by a people to the government of a State. 
In the fall of that year he removed to New 
Orleans, and in the latter part of 1856 moved 
his family to that city, where, with the exception 
of the war period, he has been domiciled ever 
since. 

Prior to the war Judge Merrick had been a 
member of the Whig party and a staunch sup- 
porter of the Union, but when in 1861 it was 
evident that the Southern people had resolved on 
secession, it became necessary to decide to which 
his allegiance was primarily due, the State of 
which he was a citizen or the Federal govern- 
ment. The logic of the Constitution and his 
own convictions left him no room to doubt, and 
he cast in his lot with his State — the birthplace 
of his wife and children and the final resting- 
place of his mother. No change in the State 
officers was made on the establishment of the 
Confederate government, and the courts having 
adjourned temporarily, he remained with his 
family for some time on his plantation at Point 
Coupee, near the mouth of the Red river. 
When New Orleans fell into the hands of the 
Federal forces his residence in that city was 
seized both by the military authorities and by the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



497 



marshal of the Federal court, and his household 
furniture and effects sold. In the summer of 
1862 he went to Monroe for the purpose of hold- 
ing a court, but his colleagues were not in at- 
tendance. In 1863 his term as Chief-Justice 
having expired, he was re-elected to that office. 
In February, 1863, the Federal gunboats having 
passed the Red river landing he determined to 
leave his plantations — Myrtle Grove and Tangle- 
wood — for a time, the cotton on the latter hav- 
ing been burned by the Confederates on the fall 
of New Orleans. He accordingly,- at the solici- 
tation of his colored hands, which coincided 
with his own views, moved to Pleasant Hill, La., 
at that time containing a college and some hand- 
some residences, and there remained till the close 
of the war. 

He held two terms of the Supreme Court at 
Shreveport, La., with Associate Justices Land, 
Manning and Bouford — Justice Voorhies being 
detained as a prisoner in New Orleans by the 
Federal authorities. In December, 1862, the 
State Legislature was summoned to meet . at 
Opelousas, and the impression prevailed among 
the members that it would be impossible to 
organize because they had not a quorum of the 
whole number as provided by the Constitution. 
Judge Merrick suggested a manner in which this 
difficulty might be overcome ; he pointed out 
that New Orleans and some of the parishes being 
in the possession of Federal authorities were 
practically cut off from the remaining portion 
of the State, and were as effectually lost to 
Louisiana as if they had__been formally annexed 
to some other State or sunk to the bottom of the 
sea; what remained, therefore, was all that con- 
stituted the State of Louisiana, and providing a 
quorum was present of the representatives of 
that portion the Legislature might be duly organ- 
ized. This suggestion was adopted, and when 
the question was afterwards submitted to the 
Supreme Court at Shreveport its legality was 
sustained, the court holding that it was not 
necessary for the organization of the Legislature 
that the representatives from the captured por- 
tions of the State should take part in their de- 
liberations. His opinion on this question was 
32 



published all over the Confederacy. After the 
fall of Vicksburg he was summoned to Marshall, 
Texas, to meet delegates called at the instance 
of the Confederate government at Richmond, 
from Arkansas and Texas, in conference concern- 
ing the affairs of the Trans-Mississippi Depart- 
ment. Chief-Justice Merrick and Judge Voor- 
hies represented Louisiana, Governor T. O. 
Moore having declined to attend ; the two Con- 
federate Senators and one or two others were 
present on behalf of Arkansas; and Governor 
Lubbock, then in the execufive chair, and Gov- 
ernor Murrough, the incoming Governor, with 
a Senator and several Representatives from the 
Confederate Congress, represented Texas. Sev- 
eral Generals were also present. This confer- 
ence was conducted in a very orderly manner ; 
various committees being appointed to which 
the instructions received from Richmond were 
delivered. The principal question discussed was 
the manner in which the future government of 
the Trans-Mississippi Department should be con- 
ducted, and Judge Merrick recommended that 
the civil affairs of the department should still 
be administered by the officers of the respective 
States, a suggestion which was cordially acqui- 
esced in by General E. Kirby Smith, the military 
commander of the department. 

Judge Merrick's plantations were overrun by 
the Federal troops in 1864, and swept of pro- 
visions and farming implements, but more for- 
tunate than some of his neighbors, his dwelling- 
house was not burnt, and his family had at least 
the shelter of a roof over their heads. The 
Judge was at this time with the principal portion 
of the colored laborers absent in western Louisi- 
ana, but so ready was Mrs. Merrick to adapt 
herself to these altered circumstances, and so 
skilful her management, that on the Judge's re- 
turn, some months later, he found everything 
renewed, and what was so lately a desolate waste 
once more smiling with abundance. In July, 
1865, Judge Merrick returned to New Orleans 
to look after his property which had been seized 
by the Federal authorities, and after much op- 
position from irresponsible and unprincipled 
officials, succeeded, by the payment of consid- 



498 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



erable sums of money, in obtaining possession 
of his former residence and grounds. While 
engaged in his private affairs a partnership was 
proposed to him by Colonel G. W. Race, who, 
in association with Mr. W. H. Foster, had con- 
ducted a successful legal practice previous to the 
war. In the fall of 1865, accordingly, the pres- 
ent firm of Merrick, Race & Foster was formed, 
and the Judge is still actively engaged in an ex- 
tensive practice in the State and United States 
courts. For some time, in common with other 
Southern members g{ the bar, he was excluded 
from practice in the Federal courts by the action 
of Judge Durell, who arbitrarily enforced " the 
Lawyer's Test Oath," while admitting that he 
did not believe it constitutional. Judge R. H. 
Marr, with rare public spirit, went to Washing- 
ton to argue the case before the Supreme Court 
of the United States, and, in January, 1867, a 
decision was obtained which opened the Federal 
courts to the Southern lawyers. 

In May, 1867, Judge Merrick, in an address, 
delivered before the graduating class of the Dol- 
bear Commercial College, New Orleans, gave 
the following practical advice to those just enter- 
ing upon the active duties of life at that gloomy 
period in the history of the South : 

" While everything is unsettled and uncertain 
you find yourselves emerging from your studies 
and about to step forward and assume a place 
among those who are taking part in the busy 
scenes around you. Happy will it be if you 
read the signs of the times aright, and adapt 
yourselves at once to the changed circumstances 
of our beloved country. The young have pliant 
minds, as well as limbs, and it is not so hard for 
them to take things as they are, and conform to 
the present condition of affairs, as for those ad- 
vanced in years. With either it is folly to 
quarrel with events or refuse the good available 
in the present, because it does not compare, ac- 
cording to our own estimate of things, with the 
golden standard of the past. . . . There is 
dignity in labor. No one ever failed to admire 
those personal acts which friendship or affection 
inspires. The object of them makes such acts, 
however arduous or fatiguing, honorable and 



graceful. Now, in a time when our country 
needs the labor and industry of every one to re- 
store her wasted places and bring back prosper- 
ity and plenty, can you imagine a more worthy 
object for our toil? If it is honorable to assist 
a sick parent or relative, much more is it so 
when that place which we call our country re- 
quires our labor. Let us discard all false no- 
tions; let us respect and honor the man, who- 
ever he may be, who by his honest toil is ad- 
vancing the prosperity of our country by adding 
his own labor to her wealth. Let us not despise 
the day of small things. The times demand 
energetic men, and those who have courage and 
nerve to do any honest thing which will lessen 
their expenses and advance their interests are 
worthy of our respect and esteem." 

On the 23d of January, 187 1, Judge Merrick 
read before the New Orleans Academy of Sci- 
ences a paper, entitled " The Laws of Louisiana 
and their Sources," from which we make the 
following extracts referring to the more marked 
peculiarities of the laws of Louisiana: 

"Under our State law, equity and law are 
administered together. . . . Equity, among 
other things, grants relief in the following cases, 
viz. : Suits for the specific performance of con- 
tracts for the sale of real estate ; to foreclose or 
redeem mortgages ; to stay waste of lands ; to 
enforce trusts ; to relieve against fraud, and en- 
join parties against enforcing judgments of 
courts at law where obtained by fraud ; to com- 
pel a party to answer under oath, in order that 
the replies of defendant, or the documents where 
any are disclosed or existing, may be used a; 
evidence in suits at law; to settle long and in- 
tricate accounts ; to marshal securities ; to settle 
boundaries; to correct mistakes in contracts; to 
relieve in some cases against penalties and for- 
feitures, and to protect the rights of married 
women, minors, etc. It is thus seen from the 
examples given that equity embraces a very con- 
siderable portion of jurisprudence, and, as it is 
governed by principles of its own, it is easy to 
see that, in many instances, it may come in con- 
flict with the State laws. For, if citizenship 
gives the United States courts jurisdiction, and 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



499 



the case be one of exclusive equity jurisdiction, 
and should be brought in the United States 
courts, it will not be heard except on the equity 
side and according to the rules in equity, no 
matter what is the State practice in the same 
case. The practice on the law side of the 
courts of the United States sitting in Louisiana 
in civil cases is governed by the practice of the 
State, which practice was adopted in 1S24 by 
the act of Congress for the Federal courts. 
Criminal proceedings, both in the courts of the 
United States and the State courts, are con- 
ducted according to the forms of the common 
law. . . . Unlike the original States of the 
Union, we have no common law offences, and 
all crimes and misdemeanors are created by 
statutes. . . . One of the most marked pecu- 
liarities of the laws of Louisiana, as compared 
with the laws of the other States, is the institu- 
tion of the community of acquets and gains. It 
is more favorable to married women than any 
other system with which I am acquainted, except 
the Spanish laws of the Indies, from which it 
was, I think, immediately taken. By the cus- 
tom of Paris and the Napoleon code, the per- 
sonal effects of the wife, in the absence of a 
marriage contract, fall into the community. 
Under our law, in the same case, the personal 
effects remain the property of the wife — that is, 
they remain paraphernal. The advantages of 
the institution are decidedly in favor of the 
wife. The husband cannot withdraw from the 
partnership, and he, the community and his 
separate estates are alike bound for the debts of 
the community as it respects third persons. The 
wife, on the other hand, can, at its dissolution 
by death or divorce, withdraw from it without 
detriment. to her separate estate, and where the 
affairs of the husband are embarrassed, she can 
be declared separate in property from her hus- 
band by the courts, and sell under execution the 
community or his estates to reimburse herself 
for any property or money used by him in his 
business, and as the law gives her a mortgage for 
her security, she is always a formidable adversary 
to a creditor seeking to recover a debt even of 
the community. The income of the husband 



(married without a marriage contract) from his 
own labor, and from his separate property, falls 
into the community without any ability on his 
part to prevent it. On the other hand, the 
wife has at all times the absolute right to with- 
draw from her husband (by contributing one- 
half of the matrimonial expenses) her separate 
or paraphernal property, and to manage it her- 
self, and reinvest the income thereof in her own 
name and for her own use, and I know no law 
to prevent her also from sharing in the commu- 
nity at its dissolution. The husband, it is true, 
is the head and master of the community during 
the existence of the marriage, and can dispose 
of the effects of the same at his pleasure and 
without his wife's sanction by onerous title — 
that is, for an equivalent ; but if he conveys the 
same by gratuitous title — that is, by gift or do- 
nation, his estates become responsible to the 
wife for the loss. If prior to or at the marriage 
the parties choose, they can settle property in 
what we call dower, the dos of the civil law. 
Property so settled cannot be sold by either 
husband or wife, or both (except in one or two 
cases), during the marriage, and thus the wife is 
assured of her estate at the termination of the 
marriage. 

" These laws, such as they are, and with their 
slight imperfections, are justly dear to the peo- 
ple of Louisiana. ' They have protected and 
shielded the home and the fireside, the labors, 
the bargains and the acquisitions, the estates, 
and the persons of this people during all the 
growth of the State of Louisiana. "The immi- 
grant who has come here from the sterile hills 
of New England, from the more genial climes 
of the South, from the fertile fields of the West, 
as well as our ancient French, Spanish and Ger- 
man populations, have approved and blessed 
these laws. To those who would like to see the 
body of the common law introduced among us 
we say, What have you of value in the common 
law? The trial by jury, the habeas corpus, 
known and defined crimes and offences, and 
enlightened rules of evidence ? We have it all 
here, and more : Your criminal law is ours : 



5°° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



your commercial law also is ours. But we have 
also the most admirable provisions of the civil 
law filled with benevolence, equity and justice, 
to regulate our dealings and define our rights in 
our every day life. That our laws, like all 
others, may require amendments to make them 
more perfect, none will deny. Let us amend, 
but never change them for others, of which our 
people have no experience, and the adoption of 
which promises us no advantages in the future." 
Among the more prominent cases with which 
Judge Merrick has been identified is the cause 
celebre known as the "Gaines case." Myra 
Clark Gaines, the daughter of Daniel Clark by 
a concealed marriage with Zuline Carriere, was 
educated in Philadelphia as the supposed daugh- 
ter of Colonel S. B. Davis. When she arrived 
at the age of womanhood, she discovered that 
she was the daughter of Daniel Clark, and began 
proceedings to recover her rights, the litigation 
connected with which covered a period of nearly 
half a century. She married first Mr. W. W. 
Whitney, a lawyer of New York, and after his 
death became the wife of General E. P. Gaines, 
of the United States army, then in command of 
the Southern Department, who died previous to 
the war. She claimed that her father, Daniel 
Clark, died on the 16th of August, 1813, having 
on the 13th of July previous executed a last will 
and testament, by which he recognized her as 
his legitimate and only daughter, and constituted 
her his universal legatee, subject to the pay- 
ment of certain specified legacies ; that the will 
was wholly written, dated and signed in the 
handwriting of Daniel Clark, and at his death 
left among his papers at his residence ; that, 
after his death, diligent search was made for the 
will, but it could not be found, and that it was 
either mislaid or destroyed. These allegations 
being presented in the Court of Probate before 
Judge Lea, he found the facts as stated proved, 
but refused to admit the will to probate, on the 
ground that the law demanded the production 
of the will. On appeal to the Supreme Court 
of Louisiana in 1855 this decision was reversed, 
Chief-Justice Merrick preparing and reading the 
opinion and decree, Judges Voorhies and Spof- 



ford concurring, Judge Lea dissenting, and 
Judge Buchanan declining to take part. The 
opinion, delivered February, 1856, concludes as 
follows: 

" Considering that the administration of 
justice requires something more than the appli- 
cation of the letter of the law designed for one 
class of cases of ordinary occurrence to all others, 
however they may have been modified by acci- 
dent, and believing that the spirit of our laws 
provides for the case which the applicant has 
presented us, we conclude that the will of 1813, 
such as she has set forth in her petition, should 
be admitted to probate. It has been objected 
(as we understand the argument) that this court 
has no jurisdiction of this case on appeal under 
the Constitution, because there is no contcstatio 
litis formed, and because there are no proper 
parties to the appeal. We dismiss this objec- 
tion with the single observation, that it is not 
necessary under the Constitution that there 
should be a technical contesiatio litis in order to 
give this court jurisdiction, and if the attorney 
of absent heirs was even necessary as a party, 
his presence here is sufficient to sustain the ap- 
peal. We are not insensible to the argument 
that this claim has remained for forty years 
without being set up in a court of justice 
in a form to be prosecuted to effect, and that 
rights have been acquired under the sales made 
under the will of 1S11. The staleness of peti- 
tioner's suit is best answered by the reference to 
the litigation in which petitioner's alleged rights 
have been prosecuted in other forms, and we 
may suppose it did not become necessary to re- 
sort to the unusual proceeding of applying for 
the probate of a lost will until after those cases 
were decided. 

"The plaintiff presents to us a prima facie 
case, which entitled her to relief. The decision 
which we make does not conclude any one who 
may desire to contest the will with her in a 
direct action, and to show that no such will was 
executed. On the other hand, a refusal to pro- 
bate the will places it beyond the power of the 
applicant to set up her rights under the will 
against any other person. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Soi 



" It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed 
by the court, that the judgment of the lower 
court be avoided and reversed, and proceeding 
to render such judgment as should have been 
rendered in the lower court, it is ordered, ad- 
judged and decreed, that the will of Daniel 
Clark, dated New Orleans, July 13th, 1813, as 
set forth in the plaintiff's petition, be recognized 
as his last will and testament, and the same is 
ordered to be recorded and executed as such ; 
and it is further ordered that Francois Dmuau 
de la Croix be confirmed as testamentary execu- 
tor of said last will and testament, and that let- 
ters testamentary issue to the said De la Croix, 
and that the costs of the proceeding be borne by 
the succession." 

This decision gave Mrs. Gaines a standing for 
the first time in the courts of the United States. 
At the December term, 1S60, the Supreme 
Court of the United States in rendering a judg- 
ment in the case of Gaines vs. Hennen, which 
they supposed terminated the controversy, said : 

" When hereafter some distinguished Ameri- 
can lawyer shall retire from his practice to write 
the history of his country's jurisprudence, this 
case will be registered by him as the most re- 
markable in the records of its courts." 

In December, 1S67, the Supreme Court of the- 
United States in the case of Gaines vs. The City 
of New Orleans, after carefully examining the 
grounds upon which the decision of the Supreme 
Court of Louisiana had been based, and consid- 
ering the unusual character of the proofs, and 
the prejudices engendered by the litigation 
growing out of Mrs. Gaines' contests for her 
rights, delivered a judgment, from which we 
extract the following: 

" The litigation has been pursued by Mrs. 
Gaines through a third of a century with a vigor 
and energy hardly ever surpassed, in defiance of 
obstacles which would have deterred persons of 
ordinary mind and character, and has enlisted 
on both sides, at different periods, the ablest 
talent of the American bar. . . . The influence 
of the probate of the will of 1813 in deciding 
the civil status of Mrs. Gaines cannot be over- 
estimated. Without the evidence which it fur- 



nishes her legitimacy might be questioned, but 
with it in connection with the other evidence in 
the record it is hard to see how it can longer 
be doubted. The circumstances under which 
the will was recognized are peculiar, and enti- 
tled the court which pronounced it valid to the 
tribute of our admiration. It was proved by the 
memory of witnesses forty-three years after it 
was made, in the height of the litigation insti- 
tuted by Mrs. Gaines to obtain the possession of 
her father's estate ; but notwithstanding the ef- 
fect of the probate was to recall the will of 181 1, 
and endanger titles acquired under it, so strong 
was its proof of authenticity, and so complete 
the evidence of its contents, that the court, ad- 
ministering justice in the midst of a people hos- 
tile to it, did not hesitate to order it to be 
recorded and executed as the will of Daniel 
Clark. ... To the discredit of the friends of 
Daniel Clark this child grew to womanhood in 
utter ignorance of her rights and parentage, and 
did not ascertain them until 1834 (then not 
fully), since which time she has been endeavor- 
ing to obtain her rightful inheritance. Owing 
to the lapse of time, it was difficult to reach the 
truth, and necessarily for many years she groped • 
her way in darkness, but finally she was able to 
show the great fraud perpetrated against her, for 
in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisi- 
ana she established the validity of that very will 
which forty-three years before her father had 
executed in her favor. This action of that 
court settled what was before doubtful — her civil 
status — and removed the difficulty she had for- 
merly encountered in pursuit of her rights. The 
questions of law and fact applicable to those 
rights were determined in the case of Gaines vs. 
Hennen. After argument by able counsel and 
on mature consideration, we have reaffirmed 
that decision. Can we not indulge the hope 
that the rights of Myra Clark Gaines in the es- 
tate of her father, Daniel Clark, will now be 
recognized? " 

The hope thus expressed proved to be delu- 
sive. Mrs. Gaines' opponents began the con- 
troversy de novo in the Probate Court of Lou- 
isiana, from which an appeal was made to the 



502 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Supreme Court of the State, and in both in- 
stances the decision was against her. Again it 
came before the Supreme Court of the United 
States, on a writ of error taken by Mrs. Gaines; 
and finally, in 1S75, the United States Supreme 
Court reversed the decision of the Supreme 
Court of Louisiana and remitted all parties to 
the Federal Courts, where Mrs. Gaines had but 
little difficulty in obtaining her rights. 

Judge Merrick has had the degree of Doctor 
of Laws conferred upon him by the Centenary 
College, Jackson, La., of which institution he 
was formerly a Trustee. He possesses a clear 
logical mind, trained by an excellent education 
in his youth, and is endowed in an eminent 
degree with those qualities which enter into the 
composition of the legal mind. As a " civilian," 
as apart from the common law, he has no supe- 
rior in Louisiana. He is not only an excellent 
English and French scholar, both of which lan- 
guages are necessary to the practice of the law 
in Louisiana, but he is also well versed in Ger- 
man, in which he has studied the law. One of 
the most laborious of students, he possesses a 
wonderful capacity for work, and commonly de- 
votes fourteen hours a day to his profession. A 
large element in his success has been his reluc- 
tance to encourage litigation and the honest ex- 
pression of his convictions as to the merits of a 
case at its inception. While liable to be strongly 
impressed with a client's statement of a case, no 
fee could tempt him to engage in a civil cause 
which he was convinced was unjust. For the 
poor he has given the most indefatigable labor, 
frequently incurring considerable personal ex- 
pense in order to insure justice being done 
them. But as a Judge he is even higher than as 
an advocate. He had the advantage of a sound 
common law education, which, added to his ac- 
knowledged ability as a civilian, has served 
greatly to enrich his decisions. Until the close 
of the war the Louisiana Bench always stood 
deservedly high before the whole country, but 
his decisions, which are still frequently quoted, 
show him to have had but one equal — Chief- 
Justice Xavier Martin, the distinguished jurist 
and first Chief-Justice of Louisiana. As a Judge 



he was very independent and never hesitated 
to place on record the reasons of his dissent 
when he thought his colleagues erred in their 
conclusions, while several of his dissenting opin- 
ions have been declared to be law by his suc- 
cessors. While holding very decided opinions, 
he has steadily stood aloof from politics, and 
consistently pursued a conservative course. To 
the amiability of disposition and purity of mind 
of a woman, Judge Merrick adds, in a quiet 
way, the iron will and tenacity of purpose of an 
Andrew Jackson, and beneath a somewhat re- 
served exterior conceals a nobility of mind and 
warmth of heart, which only those who know 
him intimately can adequately appreciate. He 
is an ardent student of astronomy, keeping well 
abreast of the latest discoveries, while chemistry, 
geology, palaeontology and other modern sciences 
are not neglected. 

He was married in 1840 to Caroline E. 
Thomas, daughter of Captain David Thomas, 
of East Feliciana, La., who served in the war of 
181 2, and was a devoted friend of General An- 
drew Jackson. Mrs. Merrick is a lady well 
known in New Orleans society for her attain- 
ments, her rare conversational powers, and 
active participation in benevolent works and 
charities. In the South she is also one of the 
first of her sex who has long believed that the 
condition of women would be improved, and 
the welfare of the State promoted, if they were 
possessed of the right of suffrage. So much in 
earnest was she in her views on this subject that, 
when invited to appear before the recent con- 
vention and present the claims and explain the 
wishes of the women of Louisiana in regard to 
woman's suffrage, she came forward and ad- 
dressed that body of the people's representatives, 
advocating equal rights and the emancipation 
of woman from her legal disabilities. 

The result of the efforts of the delegation of 
ladies, who received a courteous hearing on that 
occasion, was the following article adopted in 
the new Constitution : "Art. — . Women, twenty- 
one years and upwards, shall be eligible to 
any office of control or management, under the 
school laws of this State." 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5°3 



A journal, in a distant State, said of this con- 
cession, in a friendly editorial : " This is a great 
step in the right direction, and shows how the 
public sentiment is sure to become incorporated 
in the laws. The result in Louisiana must en- 
courage every worker for Equal Rights." 

During the war Mrs. Merrick, in the enforced 
absence of her husband within the Confederate 
lines, was thrown entirely on her own resources 
to protect their property and administer the 
hospitalities of the plantation, Myrtle Grove, 
during that peculiarly dangerous and trying 
period. General Walker's division of the Con- 
federate army was for ten months encamped in 
the vicinity, while the whole Federal army 
under General Banks, on two different occa- 
sions, passed through, and sick stragglers from 
both armies were constantly asking for supplies 
or craving medical aid. These were tenderly 
and cheerfully granted while the army remained. 
There was no hospital in the neighborhood, and 
Mrs. Merrick had a sick-room especially fitted 
up for the accommodation of the sick Confed- 
erate soldiers. She gave them a mother's care 
and acted herself as their physician, no doctors 
being obtainable in the neighborhood. She 
had the proud satisfaction of never having lost 
one of her many patients, and some of the Fed- 
eral soldiers afterwards showed, by affording her- 
protection from pillage, their appreciation of 
her unselfish devotion, irrespective of section, 
to the sacred cause of suffering humanity. Soon 
after the second and most ruthless passage of 
the Federal troops, her misfortunes culminated 
in an even more severe disaster — the overflow 
of the Red river district and crevasses on the 
neighboring plantations, destroying everything 
that had escaped the raiders. The neighbors, 
during the war period, shared most things in 
common, and helped each other with supplies 
or necessaries as occasion arose, but when this 
disastrous overflow took place the resources of 
almost every one were swept away, and their 
position became most precarious, not to say 
desperate. It was necessary for some one to 
make their way over the submerged country to 
New Orleans, and purchase supplies for the 



neighborhood. Mrs. Merrick, although natu- 
rally exceedingly timid on the water, deter- 
mined to attempt the feat of reaching the Red 
river landing, some ten miles distant, in a frail 
skiff extemporized by one of the neighbors for 
the occasion. The channel of the river for 
some distance could only be traced by the tops 
of the trees, while here and there a deep cre- 
vasse, rushing with the headlong force of the 
rapids, made it dangerous for so" small and 
slight a craft to pass without being drawn irre- 
sistibly into its vortex. To add to the risk the 
two negroes who acted as oarsmen were totally 
inexperienced in the art of rowing, and nothing 
but their devotion to the safety of their mistress 
and the exertions of a faithful old negro, who 
acted as steerer, saved the whole party from 
destruction. She eventually reached the Red 
river landing, however, in safety, from whence 
she was enabled to take steamer to New Orleans, 
and in a few weeks returned, with ample sup- 
plies, to her flooded-out neighbors, being spared 
a repetition of her former perils at the end of 
her journey by the courtesy of the commander 
of a Federal gunboat, who transported her over 
the submerged district to her home. In spite 
of all her trials, however, she describes her war 
experiences as being one of the happiest epochs 
of her life, calling out, as it did, to the fullest 
extent, the exercise of her every faculty ; the 
very danger and uncertainty of the morrow 
causing her to enjoy with greater zest whatever 
of good or of happiness presented itself in to- 
day. Mrs. Merrick is Vice-President of the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, New 
Orleans, in the success of which she takes the 
deepest interest ; a member of the Board of 
Trustees and Secretary of St. Anna's Asylum for 
Aged and Destitute Women and Children, New 
Orleans; and President of the Ladies' Sanitary 
and Benevolent Association, New Orleans. At 
one of the meetings of the latter she read a 
paper devoted to the discussion of the perhaps 
homely and uninviting, but certainly most im- 
portant question, "Where shall our clothes be 
washed?" The paper is so full of good sound 
common sense that we make a short extract : 



5°4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



"In the face of some difficulties and annoy- 
ances I think it would be best for us to have 
this work performed at home — for the first and 
paramount reason I shall now give : It has been 
ascertained that many diseases are communi- 
cated and propagated in cities by means of the 
public laundry. You need not be surprised to 
learn that ringworms and other herpetic erup- 
tions, to say nothing of scarlet fever and infec- 
tions even more dire and perilous, are all capa- 
ble of being spread abroad in this simple but 
sure way. If your apartments have ever over- 
looked one of these places you might have ob- 
served the sorting out of the 'pieces.' Is it 
certain that none of that huge pile of pocket- 
handkerchiefs have been used on sore eyes? 
You see they all go in the same tub. There 
is risk and danger in the whole proceeding — 
fearful to contemplate. Did it ever occur to 
you to think of it ? Then there are articles of 
your clothing which, even in the short time 
they are out of your possession, are liable to be 
worn by others. Now if you knew the fact, no 
matter how nicely they might be 'done up' 
afterward, they never again would seem to be 
clean. . . . The Chinese launderer uses his 
mouth instead of a patent rubber sprinkler. 
Now what could be more disgusting than table- 
cloths, towels and napkins, dampened in such a 
way for ironing? . . . Ladies, do I exaggerate 
when I say that the heaviest and most substan- 
tial fabrics, not to mention mosquito bars and 
lace-curtains, are liable to become little better 
than bundles of rags in one-half of a single de- 
cade of years ? I have heard gentlemen say 
they thought it was the friction of the wash- 
board which made such havoc with their fine 
linen. I think it may be that more of the dam- 
age is due to deleterious washing compounds. 
Concentrated lye, sal -soda and potash, are liber- 
ally used to facilitate the bleaching process, 
often at the expense of the garment falling to 
pieces. I have myself known the delicate skin 
of a young infant irritated and abraded by 
clothing washed with these mixtures." 

Judge Merrick has had four children. His 



eldest son, Captain David T. Merrick, left col- 
lege in the spring of 1861, at the age of nine- 
teen, and commanded a company of infantry 
under General T. J. Jackson (Stonewall) ; he 
participated in more than a dozen hard-fought 
battles, and at Gettysburg had but one man of 
his company left. He afterward was in com- 
mand of a company of sharp-shooters, and was 
subsequently placed on the staff of General 
Leroy Stafford, as Inspector-General of the 
Second Louisiana Brigade. At Paine's Farm 
(Mine Run) he was dangerously wounded by a 
ininie-ball passing through his head from near 
the right ear over the cavity of the mouth, cut- 
ting off the lobe of the left ear. His recovery 
in spite of the loss of blood from the lesion of 
an artery is considered one of the most wonder- 
ful in the annals of surgery. He is now engaged 
in planting on the Belair plantation adjoining 
Myrtle Grove already mentioned. Edwin T. 
Merrick, his second son, is at present reading 
law in his father's office. Laura Ellen, his elder 
daughter, married Louis J. Bright, of New Or- 
leans, on the 2d December, 1S69. She was a 
woman of rarest intelligence, educated in the 
best schools, and living in an intellectual atmo- 
sphere in her own home, which was in itself an 
inspiration to a growing young mind. She 
seemed to have an inward self-sustaining foun- 
tain of joy in her young heart which diffused 
happiness on all who came within its influence. 
Coming from a long line of tender, gentle, 
saintly women, she belonged to that type cele- 
brated in story and embalmed in song. In fact 
she was one of those happily organized beings 
who are possessed of unusually refined and ex- 
quisite moral perceptions. Though wholly un- 
acclimated, and accustomed to spending her 
summers in the country or in travelling, her 
noble and self-sacrificing devotion to the wishes 
of her husband caused her to remain in New 
Orleans every summer season after her marriage. 
During the great yellow fever epidemic of 1S78 
she fell a victim the first day of September, 
dying in the flower of her womanhood, leaving 
four motherless children, three of whom still 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5°5 



survive. Clara, his younger daughter, a brilliant 
and accomplished lady, is the wife of James B. 
Guthrie, a lawyer of New Orleans. 



JAMES R. RANDALL, Esq. 

Georgia. 

• AMES RYDER RANDALL was born at 
Baltimore, Md., January ist, 1839. His 
family is of English-French extraction, 
his forefathers being among the earliest 
settlers in Maryland. On his mother's 
side he traces his descent from the French col- 
onists of Nova Scotia, who were driven from 
Acadie by the British. Longfellow in his "Evan- 
geline " has celebrated these exiles and their wan- 
derings, one of the principal characters in the 
celebrated poem being a kinsman of Mr. Ran- 
dall's great-grandfather. A very old Bible in 
French, printed at Amsterdam about two hun- 
dred years ago, is still in the possession of Mr. 
Randall's family. After a course at private 
schools he was sent, in his tenth year, to George- 
town College, D. C, where he remained for 
seven years, and acquired a good classical educa- 
tion. A few months before graduation he was 
prostrated by sickness and compelled to leave 
the college and seek recuperation in foreign 
travel. After visiting several parts of South 
America he returned to Baltimore. In 1857 he 
started southward, residing for a year in Florida 
and subsequently in Louisiana. At New Orleans 
he entered the office of a stock-broker, and diver- 
sified his business employment by contributing 
to the press. Some of his poems which appeared 
in the New Orleans Delta attracted considerable 
attention, especially one entitled "Eidolon." 
After two years spent in commercial pursuits Mr. 
P.andall accepted a Professorship at the Poydras 
College, in the parish of Pointe Coupee. While 
there he received news of the passage of the 
Federal troops through Baltimore, at the com- 
mencement of the war between the States. This 
acted so powerfully on his sympathies that one 
night, in a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, he 
wrote the celebrated poem, "My Maryland," 



which, set to music in April, 1861, went like 
wild-fire through the South from camp to fire- 
side, and from the Potomac to the Rio-Grande, 
making the author instantaneously famous. It 
was the "Marseillaise" of the "lost cause." 
Not long since Mr. Randall was requested by a 
member of Lord Byron's family to furnish them 
with an autographic copy of this poem as a trophy 
they would peculiarly prize. "My Maryland" 
was followed by several other war poems, nota- 
bly "The Battle-Cry of the South," and 
"There 's Life in the Old Land Yet." At this 
time, too, Mr. Randall wrote a number of mis- 
cellaneous poems, such as " The Cameo Brace- 
let," "Alexandrine" and "John Pelham." 
While a member of the Crescent Regiment Mr. 
Randall, whose health had never been very robust 
since his severe illness at college, was again 
prostrated by an affection of the lungs, and dis- 
charged from active service. During the re-, 
mainder of the war he was in the Ordnance 
Department at Richmond, Va., and Selma, Ala., 
and afterwards Secretary or Adjutant to Flag 
Officer Win. F. Lynch, Confederate States Navy, 
at Wilmington, N. C. He was retired from the 
naval service in consequence of a third attack of 
ill health. Recovering in some degree in 1865 
he became associate editor of the Constitutionalist 
at Augusta, Ga. Upon the entrance of the 
Federal troops into Augusta Mr. Randall's edi- 
torial articles were so displeasing to the powers 
that were as to cause the suspension of the paper 
by military authority. In 1867, after some 
months absence from Augusta, revisiting the 
home of his boyhood, which he had not seen for 
seven eventful years, he returned to Georgia and 
became editor-in-chief of the Constitutionalist, 
which position he held during the reconstruction 
era, from 1867 to 187 1. To the redemption of 
Georgia and the South he contributed powerfully 
with his pen ; forsaking the muse for the prosaic 
drudgery of a daily newspaper. In 1868, how- 
ever, he was moved to write the touching poem, 
"Arlington," which is founded upon a most re- 
markable incident which occurred one Decora- 
tion Day at the National Cemetery at Arlington, 
Va. In 187 1 Mr. Randall retired from editorial 



S° 6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 




life and returned to commercial pursuits. In 
1873, however, he again became editor-in-chief 
of the Constitutionalist, retaining that position 
until that newspaper's consolidation with the 
Chronicle and Sentinel, upon which journal he is 
now editorially employed. He married, in 1866, 
a daughter of Gen. M. C. M. Hammond and 
niece of Hon. James H. Hammond, ex-Governor 
of South Carolina, and ex-United States Senator. 
Mr. Randall has had five children, of whom 
three survive, a boy and two girls. He seldom 
writes poetry now, having become greatly sobered 
by the stern realities of life and by the monotony 
of the journalistic tread-mill. 



W. T. BLACKWELL & CO. 

North Carolina. 

ILLIAM THOMAS BLACKWELL was 
born January 12th, 1839, at Woodsdale, 
Person county, N. C, and is the son 
of James L. Blackwell, a farmer of that 
county. He received a common school 
education, and during the years 1862 and 1863 
taught school in his native village. Commenc- 
ing life as a broker and trader in every descrip- 
tion of merchandise, he travelled for about twelve 
months through North Carolina, making Greens- 
boro' his head-quarters. He then began to give 
especial attention to speculating in plug tobacco, 
and, having bought a wagon and team, travelled 
round the country, in conjunction with James 
R. Day, now one of his partners. He was soon 
able to extend his operations by purchasing an- 
other wagon, and continued to peddle tobacco 
in the eastern part of North Carolina until the 
end of the war. He then, in partnership with 
Mr. Day, opened a jobbing tobacco-house in 
Kingston, Lenoir county, N. C, but still con- 
tinued to send out his wagons. The principal 
portion of their trade was in the tobacco manu- 
factured by J. R. Green at Durham's Station, 
whose method of manufacture had given his 
brand a considerable local reputation. It was 
found that there was a greater demand for the 
tobacco than Green could supply, and arrange- 



ments were entered into to extend the capacity 
of the factory by the purchase, in 1S6S, of a 
half of Green's share by Messrs. Blackwell and 
Day. The business was thereafter carried on 
with increased energy, and Mr. Green, who had 
been for some time in failing health, dying in 
1S69, his interest was purchased from his heirs 
by the two remaining partners. In 1870 Mr. 
Julian S. Carr joined the firm, and since that 
time Mr. Blackwell has been -the senior partner 
of the celebrated firm of W. T. Blackwell & Co., 
proprietors of the famous Durham smoking 
tobacco, but himself sole proprietor of the trade- 
mark — " the Durham Bull" — in use by the firm. 
Mr. Blackwell, who has all his life been more or 
less connected with the tobacco trade, as a judge 
of leaf tobacco has few equals anywhere. He 
gives exclusive attention to selecting and pur- 
chasing the tobacco manufactured by the firm, 
every pound of which passes under his inspection, 
and his intelligence and experience as a buyer 
have been important factors in the wide popu- 
larity of the Durham smoking tobacco. He 
may be considered the father of Durham, which, 
a mere village of little more than a hundred of 
inhabitants when he first settled there in 1868, 
has sprung up around his tobacco factory into a 
thrivingmanufacturing town of 3, 000. inhabitants. 
He has been foremost in all measures looking to 
the advancement of the town and the welfare of 
its inhabitants, and the same foresight and energy 
which has made Blackwell's smoking tobacco 
famous has laid the foundation of a large and 
prosperous inland city. His great determination 
and energy combined with shrewd common 
sense and mother wit have made him in the best 
sense of the word a self-made man, while his 
genial disposition, kindness of heart, and unos- 
tentatious charity have endeared him to all with 
whom he is brought in contact. 

He was married December 27th, 1S77, to 
Emma Exum, daughter of W. J. Exum, an ex- 
tensive planter of Hillsboro', and formerly of 
Wayne county, N. C. 

James Right Day was born February 10th, 
1 841, at Woodsdale, Person county, N. C, and 
is the son of Saunders S. Day, farmer, of that 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5°7 



county. His father had a small tobacco factory 
on his farm, in which he manufactured his own 
and some of his neighbors' tobacco, and James 
was brought up as an operative there, and thus 
acquired a thorough knowledge of the manipu- 
lation of tobacco. In 1863 he took charge of 
Sam. Morgan's plug tobacco factory, five miles 
below Durham, and there gained considerable 
reputation as a manufacturer. He subsequently 
conducted the large plug tobacco factory of N. 
M. Norwood, at Bluewing, Person county. 
Tired of manufacturing he joined Mr. W. T. 
Blackwell, and with him travelled around the 
eastern part of North Carolina, peddling tobacco 
until the end of the war. He then joined Mr. 
Blackwell in opening a jobbing tobacco house 
in Kingston, Lenoir county, and in 1868 bought 
with him a half interest in the tobacco factory 
of J. R. Green at Durham's Station. On 
Green's decease, in 1869, his share was bought 
by Messrs. Blackwell and Day, who now, with 
Mr. Julian S. Carr, form the firm of W. T. 
Blackwell & Co., the proprietors of the famous 
Durham smoking tobacco. 

Mr. Day was married February 23d, 1872, to 
Jenny McCown, daughter of John McCown, 
farmer and millwright, of Orange county, N. C. 

Julian Shakspeare Carr was born October 12th, 
1845, at Chapel Hill, Orange county, N. C, 
and is the son of John W. Carr, merchant, of 
that place. The Carr family is of Scotch-Irish 
descent. John W. Carr was one of the three 
who previous to the war constituted the county 
court of Orange county, and has since been 
County Commissioner. Professor W. B. Carr, 
of Petersburg, Va., is a cousin of the subject 
of this sketch. Colonel Robert Bullock, his 
maternal uncle, was a Colonel in the Seminole 
war, and. an elector for the State at large on the 
Tilden ticket, and candidate for Lieutenant- 
Governor of Florida in 1875. Julian S. Carr 
received his early education at a school in the 
vicinity of Chapel Hill, and was prepared for 
college by Mr. J. L. Stewart, now a prominent 
lawyer and Baptist minister at Clinton, in the 
eastern part of North Carolina. In June, 1862, 
he entered the University of South Carolina, at 



Chapel Hill, but after nearly two years' study 
was carried away by the military ardor of the 
day, and, in spite of his youth, volunteered in 
the Third North Carolina Cavalry in the early 
part of 1864. He joined his regiment at Din- 
widdie Court-House, Va., and participated in 
all the hard and incessant fighting on the flank 
of General Lee's army around Petersburg, in- 
cluding Hatcher's Run and Burgess Mill. His 
command assisted in covering the retreat of the 
army from Petersburg to Appomattox, during 
which it was cut in two at Five Forks, and was 
at Double Bridges at the time of the surrender. 
Mr. Carr never lost a day's duty during his period 
of service, and though preferring to serve as a 
private, carried in his pocket a detail as an officer 
on General Baringer's staff. 

At the conclusion of the war he re-entered 
the University of North Carolina for one session, 
and at its termination in June, 1867, established 
himself in a general mercantile business at Chapel 
Hill. Having a great desire to travel, he left, in 
1868, on a prospecting tour for the South, and 
passing through Georgia, Tennessee and Mis- 
sissippi, arrived at Little Rock, Ark., where he 
entered into business on a larger scale than here- 
tofore with his uncle and another gentleman, 
under the firm of Carr & Kingsburg. After 
eighteen months' residence in Little Rock his 
father saw an opportunity to purchase a third 
interest in W. T. Blackwell's tobacco factory at 
Durham, and being anxious that his son should 
settle nearer home, insisted on his taking advan- 
tage of the opportunity. In September, 1870, 
accordingly, he joined that firm, and has since 
had the entire control of its mercantile and 
financial department. Conducting successfully 
a business of $1,500,000 per annum, he is with- 
out question one of the first business men in 
North Carolina, and the financial genius of that 
well-known and extensive firm ; and to his far- 
sighted and liberal policy may justly be attributed 
a large portion of its constantly increasing pros- 
perity. His bold and lavish yet discriminating 
system of advertising has made the Blackwell's 
Durham smoking tobacco a household word from 
Maine to the Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the 



5 o8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Pacific Slope. For fence-painting alone the firm 
paid $15,000 in 1877, while for newspapers and 
periodicals their advertising outlay exceeds 
$10,000 a year. The Durham Bull is ubiquitous 
— as the traveller speeds through the canons of 
the Rocky Mountains the majestic proportions 
of the noble beast stare him in the face, and on 
entering the harbor of Bombay the first promi- 
nent object to meet the gaze of the wanderer is 
the familiar Durham Bull and Blackwell's Dur- 
ham tobacco. Mr. Carr is thoroughly versed in 
the history of the tobacco trade, and knows 
either personally or by reputation, nearly every 
tobacco house or firm in the Union, and many 
out of it. He is thoroughly posted in patent 
and trade-mark law from long experience in the 
courts in protecting the interests of his firm 
against counterfeiters. Enterprising and public- 
spirited, Mr. Carr has encouraged and fostered 
everything tending to the prosperity of the town 
in which he has made his home, and the comfort 
and well-being of its citizens. In 1872 he was 
elected Mayor of Durham. He is a consistent 
member of the Methodist Church and Superin- 
tendent of one of the most flourishing Sunday- 
schools in North Carolina. He is a Trustee of 
the University of North Carolina, and one of the 
Managers and a member of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the State Agricultural Fair of North 
Carolina. He has a fine house in Durham, re- 
plete with every modern convenience, and the 
three acres of flower garden and shrubbery at- 
tached are laid out with great taste. Of culti- 
vated and refined tastes, literature and the arts 
have found in him a liberal and appreciative 
patron, while in his devotion to horticulture and 
floriculture he is a perfect enthusiast. Generous 
and warm-hearted, no worthy object has ever 
lacked his co-operation, and no one in misfortune 
has ever appealed to him in vain. He married 
February 19th, 1873, Nannie Graham Parrish, 
daughter of Colonel D. C. Parrish, an influen- 
tial and liberal resident of Orange county, where 
at one time he conducted a fine school ; and, 
previous to the war, formed one of three gentle- 
men who constituted the county court of that 
county. 



Durham is situated in the southeastern part of 
Orange county, N. C, on the North Carolina 
Railroad, twenty-six miles from Raleigh, the 
capital of the State, on the east, and sixty miles 
from Greensboro' on the west. Orange county 
is on the eastern limit of what is known as the 
" Golden Belt " or " bright " tobacco region of 
North Carolina, one of the finest tobacco-grow- 
ing districts in the world. Durham received its 
name from Dr. Bartlett Durham, a large land- 
owner, who gave the North Carolina Railroad 
five acres of ground on which to erect their 
buildings. In i860 there were but a few small 
dwellings at what was then known as Durham's 
Station. In 1869 there were less than three 
hundred inhabitants, whilst now the vigorous 
and flourishing town of Durham contains a 
population of over 3,000. During the war the 
manufacture of smoking tobacco was carried on 
there in a small way by Mr. J. R. Green, who 
had in use a method of flavoring surpassing that 
previously known. It was at Durham's Station 
that General J. E. Johnston's army surrendered 
to General Sherman. The negotiations were 
accompanied by an armistice, which was pro- 
longed for several days, and after the surrender 
the two armies met and fraternized in the neigh- 
borhood. In Green's factory were stored several 
thousand pounds of smoking tobacco, which the 
soldiers of both armies aided in sacking and 
carrying off to their homes in all parts of the 
country. A demand soon sprung up from the 
veterans who had learned to enjoy its excellence, 
and who had named it Durham tobacco. Green 
finding that his tobacco had already acquired a 
reputation, adopted as his distinguishing brand 
the Durham Bull, a representation of which he 
had painted on his factory, and which he was 
the first to use. In 1868 W. T. Blackwell and 
J. R. Day purchased one-half interest in the 
business, and on Green's death, which followed 
in 18C9, the other two partners purchased his 
share from his heirs. 

In 1870 Mr. Julian S. Carr purchased one- 
third share in the firm. From Green's death 
until 1S73 the business was conducted under the 
style of W. T. Blackwell, and since that date as 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5°9 



W. T. Blackwell & Co. To show the wonder- 
ful growth of their business it is only necessary 
to state that from manufacturing a merely nom- 
inal amount in 1870, the yearly product has so 
increased that, in 1875, tne nrm manufactured 
and marketed nearly 1,500,000 pounds of to- 
bacco, and, in 1878, over 2,000,000 pounds. 
The manufacturing capacity of the factory is 
12,000 pounds per day. The tobacco is sold to 
wholesale dealers only, in the principal cities of 
the United States and Canada, and in many 
foreign countries. Much of the machinery and 
improved methods used in the manufacture have 
been introduced by W. T. Blackwell & Co., and 
their extensive factory, which is without doubt 
one of the finest and most complete of its kind 
in this country, is a model for convenient and 
expeditious work. The factory, which was 
erected in 1875, is a substantial and handsome 
building four stories high, on the front of which 
is an immense painting of a Durham bull, while 
to heighten the illusion the steam-whistle of the 
engine is made to imitate the bellowing of that 
animal. It has a frontage of 120 feet, by 40 
feet in depth, on the south side of the North 
Carolina Railroad, which it is immediately 
alongside, with a wing of 40 feet in the rear. 
The first floor of the main building is occupied 
by offices, sales-room, and store for receiving 
raw leaf, which is then taken to the elevator 
between the main building and the wing and 
thence conveyed to the drying-room on the 
fourth floor. Here it is spread out upon lattice- 
work and movable shelves and subjected to in- 
tense heat from steam-pipes in order to remove 
all moisture, so that it may be easily broken into 
small particles. From the drying-room the 
tobacco is taken by a shute to the ground floor 
of the wing of the factory, where six cutting- 
machines driven by steam reduce the tobacco 
to a granulated condition. The operatives by 
whom these machines are fed are obliged to 
cover their nostrils with a cloth to prevent injury 
to their lungs. From trie cutting-machines the 
tobacco goes to the basement below, and is there 
taken up, automatically, by means of endless 
belts on which are elevators at frequent intervals, 



not unlike those used in flouring mills, and car- 
ried to the third story, where a sieve-like ma- 
chine, known as the stem-separator, removes the 
stems, and the remaining portion descends to 
the second floor and is bolted, when the fine dust 
and dirt are thoroughly removed — the perfected 
bolting machinery used by the firm contributing 
largely to the rare excellence of the Durham 
brand. The refuse is used for fertilizing pur- 
poses, and the revenue from its sale is consider- 
able. When free from dust and impurities, the 
tobacco is taken to a sieve and becomes the 
granulated and finished product. From here it 
is carried to the upper story of the main build- 
ing to mellow and ripen with age, and then 
undergoes the final process of flavoring and 
packing. Just below on the third floor are the 
flavoring and packing departments. The prin- 
cipal material used in the flavoring process is the 
tonka bean, a product of Guiana, which gives 
forth a peculiar aroma; it was first used in flavor- 
ing smoking tobacco by Mr. J. R. Green, the 
predecessor of the present firm, although its 
merits are now recognized by the entire tobacco 
trade. Nevertheless, fully seventy-five per cent, 
of the tonka bean stock brought to the United 
States is controlled and consumed by W. T. 
Blackwell & Co. This will be better under- 
stood when it is known that the merit of the 
tonka bean as a flavor depends on the method 
of its application. The method of applying it 
has been so perfected under the direction of 
Mr. Blackwell that it now constitutes a valuable 
trade secret. Other aromatic substances are 
brought into use and combined with the tonka 
bean in order to secure the "Durham flavor." 
The flavoring processes are never varied, and in 
this way the aroma is always uniform, so that a 
connoisseur can always detect the fumes of his 
favorite Durham. It is now packed in the 
familiar square-cornered white cloth packages. 
The cloth bags are manufactured in Durham, 
and this of itself constitutes an important in- 
dustry, giving employment to a large number 
of people and many sewing-machines. W. T. 
Blackwell & Co. have facilities for packing 
15,000 pounds of smoking tobacco a day. After 



5i° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



leaving the packing department it goes to the 
stamping department on the second floor, where 
fifty to sixty boys and girls are employed in 
affixing the government revenue stamps and 
label. The value of the internal revenue stamps 
■used in 1878 amounted to $500,000. The to- 
bacco is packed for shipment in pine boxes which 
are manufactured at the firm's own box-factory 
in the rear of the main building. Their widely- 
extended business reaches to all the prominent 
cities in the United States and Canada, with 
regular shipments to England and the continent, 
China, Japan, and the East Indies, with agencies 
at Shanghai and Bombay. The factory is sup- 
plied with all the modern improvements, each 
floor being heated by steam, while beneath 
the roof of the main building is a water tank 
with a capacity of 18,000 gallons. Complete 
arrangements are in force to insure against fire, 
and the workmen are thoroughly instructed in 
the use of the apparatus. The whole establish- 
ment is complete within itself. A steam saw- 
mill is engaged in running two saws and three 
planing-machines for the manufacture of the 
boxes used by the firm ; the infinite variety of 
lables are printed on the premises at the large 
printing office, complete in every respect, using 
three presses, and doing all the printing of the 
establishment besides a large amount of outside 
work. Two hundred and fifty hands are em- 
ployed in the manufacture of tobacco, one hun- 
dred in making bags, and a considerable number 
in other departments. Messrs. Blackwell & Co. 
manufacture more granulated tobacco than any 
one firm in the world. They manufacture 
smoking tobacco only, and that of but one 
brand, the "Genuine Durham (Bull) Smoking 
Tobacco." The popularity of the "Bull" 
brand is constantly increasing. Its handling 
is characterized in every detail by that peculiar 
care, knowledge, and skill conferred alone by 
intelligent experience, and evidenced in the 
uniformity superior quality of the article, and 
the unvarying standard of color and flavor which 
perpetuates its popularity. Owing to its uni- 
versal popularity, various manufacturers have 
under one device and another colorably imitated 



the brand. W. E. Dibrell & Co., of Richmond, 
Va., were making and selling an imitation of 
the famous Durham brand, and in January, 1S78, 
Messrs. W. T. Blackwell & Co. obtained a judg- 
ment against them in the Circuit Court of the 
United States, Eastern District of Virginia, 
awarding to W. T. Blackwell & Co. "the sole 
and exclusive right to use and employ the word 
Durham to designate and distinguish the smok- 
ing tobacco manufactured by them, and also to 
use and employ in conjunction with the said 
word Durham the side view representation of a 
Durham Bull as and for their trade-mark." 
Liberal, prompt, and honorable in all their busi- 
ness relations, the well-earned prosperity of W. 
T. Blackwell & Co. is due to their untiring 
enterprise, keen sagacity, and scrupulous ad- 
herence to character once attained. Among the 
evidences of their public spirit is their erection 
alongside the railroad of the Grand Central 
Hotel, a handsome and convenient house and a 
great boon to the travelling public. 



DR. HUN'TER H. McGUIRE. 

^. Virginia. 

^Yf[|UNTER HOLMES McGUIRE was born 
^clll at Winchester, Va., October nth, 1835. 
"aj|J.I Son of the late Dr. Hugh H. McGuire, 
%^ an eminent surgeon and physician, by 
whom his scientific studies were directed, 
and to whom the development of his mind and 
his skill as a surgeon is largely due. He received 
his medical education at Winchester Medical 
College, whence he graduated in 1S55, ar >d soon 
afterwards left for Philadelphia, where he en- 
tered as student of medicine at the University 
of Pennsylvania and Jefferson College, Philadel- 
phia, and matriculated at both in 1S56; but, 
being seized with a violent attack of rheumatism, 
was compelled to return to his home in Win- 
chester, and consequently was unable to gradu- 
ate. Was Professor of Anatomy at Winchester 
Medical College 1856-5S, and returned to Phila- 
delphia in the fall of 1S5S, where, assisted by 
Drs. Lockett and W. H. Pancoast, he held a 







"^ 




u***s£i^. /^US//£^t^£ sfo. /j f 




REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5" 



very large quiz class — a private class in operative 
surgery. When the body of John Brown (of 
Harper's Ferry) was taken through Philadelphia 
a great outcry was raised against all Southern 
people, and popular feeling running very high 
against them, all the Southern students proposed 
to return to the South, and Dr. McGuire tele- 
graphed to Richmond to know upon what terms 
the Medical College of Virginia would receive 
them. The authorities replied that no fees 
would be demanded and that all expenses would 
be paid. Upon this, in December, 1859, Dr. 
Hunter McGuire started from Philadelphia with 
over three hundred students, and on their arrival 
they were received with great demonstrations, 
during which Governor H. A. Wise made a 
stirring speech and the city paid the railroad fare 
of all the students, who completely filled the 
college. Drs. Lockett and McGuire finished 
the course with the students.at the Medical Col- 
lege of Virginia in March, i860, when Dr. 
McGuire returned to Winchester and practised 
his profession in association with his father until 
April, 1861. Received diploma from Medical 
College of Virginia March, 1S60. At the out- 
break of the war, Dr. McGuire volunteered in 
Company F, Second Virginia Regiment, and 
marched with his regiment to Harper's Ferry in 
April, 1S61, but was commissioned May 4th, 
1 86 1, Surgeon in the provisional army of the 
Confederate States, and immediately assigned 
to duty as Medical Director of the Department 
at Harper's Ferry, known as the Army of the 
Shenandoah, and then under the command of 
General T. J. Jackson (Stonewall). When Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston took command he 
served under him until July 1st, 1861, when 
General Jackson having organized the First Vir- 
ginia Brigade (the future Stonewall brigade), he 
requested that Surgeon McGuire might be as- 
signed to him as Brigade Surgeon. At the first 
battle of Manassas, July 21st, 1861, when Gen- 
eral Jackson made the celebrated charge with 
his brigade which turned the fortune of the day, 
he raised his left hand above his head to encour- 
age the troops, and while in this position the 
middle finger was struck by a ball and broken. 



He remained upon the field till the fight was 
over, and then wanted to take part in the pur- 
suit, but was peremptorily ordered back to the 
hospital by the General commanding. On his 
way to the rear the wound pained him so much 
that he stopped at the first hospital he came to, 
and the surgeon there proposed to cut the finger 
off, but, while the doctor looked for his instru- 
ments, and for a moment turned his back, the 
General silently mounted his horse and rode off 
to Surgeon McGuire, who was then busily en- 
gaged with the wounded. He refused to allow 
himself to be attended to until " his turn came." 
By judicious treatment the finger was saved, and 
in the end the deformity was very trifling. Sur- 
geon McGuire remained as Brigade Surgeon 
from July to October, when General Jackson 
took command of the Army of the Valley Dis- 
trict, of which McGuire became Medical Di- 
rector. 

The Valley campaign commenced January 1st, 
1S62, and included the battles of McDowell, 
Winchester, Cross Keys and Port Republic, 
after which the army joined General Lee during 
the celebrated seven days' fight against General 
McClellan. After this came the fight at Cedar 
Run against Pope, followed by the second bat- 
tle of Manassas against Generals Pope and Mc- 
Clellan. During the battle General Ewell, who 
was kneeling on the ground and looking under 
some pine bushes to get a better view of the 
field, was hit on the left knee, and .passing down- 
wards splintered the tibia into fragments, and 
finally lodged in the muscles of the leg. The 
General's health was bad, and he had lost a 
great deal of sleep, his troops having been con- 
stantly fighting and marching for two days and 
nights, and he was so much exhausted when he 
was shot that his surgeons thought at one time 
that he would die from the shock. When he 
had sufficiently recovered, Surgeon McGuire 
advised him to submit to amputation, and he 
consented very reluctantly. The thigh was 
amputated just above the knee, and about ten 
days after, to escape capture, he was carried on 
a litter by soldiers nearly fifty miles ; the mo- 
tion caused the bone to protrude, and after much 



5*2 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



suffering and the loss of an inch of bone, he got 
well enough to go about, when one day he un- 
luckily let his crutches slip, and falling upon an 
icy pavement reopened the wound again, knock- 
ing off a piece of bone. After some months, he 
returned to the field and performed some very 
active service. Then followed the campaign in 
Maryland and battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), 
and the battle of Fredericksburg closing that 
campaign. At all these engagements Surgeon 
McGuire was present, never missing a battle 
where the troops were fighting. At the battle of 
Chancellorsville, May, 1863, General Jackson 
received his death-wounds, and being placed 
upon a litter, was passed on as rapidly as the 
thick woods and rough ground would permit, 
when, unfortunately, one of the bearers was 
struck down, and the General was thrown to the 
ground, but was again placed on the litter, when 
he was met by Surgeon McGuire, to whom he 
said : "lam badly injured, Doctor ; I fear I am 
dying." His clothes were saturated with blood, 
his skin cold and clammy, his face pale, fixed 
and rigid, and his lips, compressed and blood- 
less, showed his sufferings were intense. His 
iron will controlled all evidence of emotion. 
On reaching the hospital he was placed in bed, 
and he was told that amputation would probably 
be required, and asked, if found necessary, 
whether it should be done at once ; he replied, 
promptly: "Yes, certainly, Dr. McGuire, do 
for me whatever you think best." Chloro- 
form was administered, and as he began to feel 
its effects and its relief to the pain he was suf- 
fering, he exclaimed : "What an infinite bless- 
ing! " and continued to repeat "blessing" until 
lie became insensible. The round ball (such as 
used for the smooth-bore Springfield musket), 
which had lodged under the skin on the back 
of the right hand, was extracted first ; it had en- 
tered the palm about the middle of the hand, 
and had fractured two of the bones. The left 
arm was then amputated about two inches below 
the shoulder — there were two wounds in this 
arm, the most serious dividing the main artery 
and fracturing the bone. Throughout the whole 
operation, and until all the dressings were ap- 



plied, he continued insensible. Two or three 
slight wounds of the skin of his face, received 
from the branches of trees when his horse dashed 
through the woods, were also dressed. As there 
was some danger of capture by Federal troops, 
it was decided to remove him, and Dr. Mc- 
Guire was directed to accompany and remain 
with him, and his duties as Medical Director 
were transferred to the Surgeon next in rank, 
although General Jackson had previously de- 
clined to allow the Doctor to accompany him, 
as complaints had been so frequently made of 
general officers when wounded carrying off with 
them the surgeons belonging to their commands. 
Whilst Dr. McGuire was asleep, he directed his 
servant, Jim, to apply a wet towel to his sto- 
mach, to relieve nausea; the servant asked per- 
mission to first consult the Doctor, but the 
General refused to allow him to be disturbed. 
About daylight the Doctor was aroused, and 
found him suffering great pain, and examination 
disclosed pleuro-pneumonia of the right side, 
which the Doctor believed was attributable to 
the fall from the litter the night he was wounded, 
and thought the disease came on too soon after 
the application of the wet cloths to admit of the 
supposition, once believed, that it was induced 
by them. Dr. McGuire continued, in conjunc- 
tion with other physicians summoned to assist 
him, to minister assiduously to his beloved leader 
until his death. 

We may here remark that, although sometimes 
high positions may have been occupied in the 
Confederate service by incapable persons, yet 
this could never be said truly of those serving 
under the eagle-eye of Stonewall Jackson, who 
possessed, not only the talent to contrive and 
capacity to perform great deeds, but also the 
equally important attribute of true genius, viz. : 
the judgment to select those competent to assist 
him in their execution. 

It was, therefore, a great honor in itself to 
have served satisfactorily on the staff of such a 
commander; but a higher meed of praise than 
this belongs to the subject of this notice. He 
possessed his entire confidence, his warm friend- 
ship, and received his highest commendation. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5i3 



The sword presented by Jackson to his surgeon 
at the battle of Winchester, 1862, could only 
have been bestowed on one possessed of indomi- 
table energy, transcendent skill and unflinching 
fidelity. Associated as closely and conspicuously 
as it was possible for a surgeon to be with the 
greatest war ever waged in America, following 
the standard the most brilliant military genius 
developed in the struggle, and aiding, with all 
the resources of his art that intrepid brigade 
whose name has become immortal — the fame of 
its surgeon is inseparably united to that of the 
heroic band that stood "like a stonewall" in 
the face of assailing hosts. After the death of 
General Jackson, Surgeon McGuire served as 
Chief Surgeon of the Second Corps of the Army 
of Northern Virginia, under Lieutenant-General 
Ewell. After defeating Milroy at Winchester, 
they were engaged at Gettysburg ; there General 
Trimble took the place of Pender, who was 
wounded and afterwards died, and had been in 
command of the division only an hour or two, 
when he was shot in the ankle-joint.. He had 
been wounded before in the same limb at the 
second Manassas by an explosive ball which 
burst and badly lacerated the parts. ■ A surgeon 
was about to amputate the leg when Dr. 
McGuire arrived, and advised him to at- 
tempt to save it. The advice was followed, 
and a few months after the General reported for 
duty. As soon as he was wounded at Gettys- 
burg, he again sent for McGuire, who found 
him in great distress, as much from losing com- 
mand of the division so soon as from the pros- 
pect of losing his leg. Dr. McGuire amputated 
his leg for gun-shot wound of the ankle-joint, 
and he eventually lecovered, and wore an arti- 
ficial leg. From Gettysburg they returned to 
Virginia, when they were opposed to General 
Grant from Spottsylvania to Cold Harbor ; he 
afterwards acted as Medical Director of the 
Army of the Valley with Lieutenant-General 
Early to Lynchburg, and the campaign of the 
Valley down to Frederick City and Monocasi 
and almost to Washington, and then at Win- 
chester, Fisher's Hill and Waynesboro', where 
Dr. McGuire was captured, and paroled for 
33 



fifteen days and then released. He then rejoined 
the Second Corps under General Gordon, and re- 
mained as Medical Director till the surrender at 
Appomattox. 

In May, 1S62, at the battle of Winchester, 
Va., Surgeon McGuire inaugurated the plan of 
releasing captured medical officers. Eight 
Federal surgeons were set free upon the simple 
condition that they would endeavor to procure 
the release of the same number of Confederate 
surgeons. Afterwards General Jackson himself 
approved of this action. A few weeks after this, 
all of the medical officers who had been con- 
fined by both parties as prisoners of war were 
released and returned to their respective com- 
mands. Although this plan of exchanging 
medical officers as non-combatants was inter- 
rupted by some disagreement between the Com- 
missioners for the Exchange of Prisoners, yet 
Dr. McGuire continued to release surgeons 
whenever it was in his power. As late as Feb- 
ruary, 1865, he liberated the Medical Inspector 
of General Sheridan's army. When Surgeon 
McGuire was himself captured at Waynesboro', 
in March, 1865, General Sheridan showed his 
appreciation of Surgeon McGuire's action by 
immediately ordering his liberation. 

Surgeon McGuire was the first to organize 
Reserve Corps Hospitals in the Confederacy (in 
the spring of 1S62, in the Valley campaign). 
About the same time he succeeded in perfecting 
the "Ambulance Corps." Four men were de- 
tailed from each company to assist its wounded 
from the field to the hospitals in the rear. These 
men wore conspicuous badges, and were selected 
for their courage, etc., no one else during a bat- 
tle being permitted to leave the ranks for this 
purpose. 

It is almost needless to add that Surgeon Mc- 
Guire always received the hearty co-operation 
of General Jackson in his efforts to perfect the 
medical department in the field. In all reports 
of battles by the generals commanding the forces 
with which he served, he was highly compli- 
mented for his zeal and ability. It was his good 
fortune to enjoy the personal friendship, not only 
of General Jackson, but of Generals Lee, Early 



su 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



and Ewell, all of whom he attended when sick 
or wounded. 

The war being ended, Dr. McGuire, Novem- 
ber, 1S65, removed to Richmond, having been 
appointed to fill the chair of surgery in the 
Medical College of Virginia, made vacant by the 
death of Dr. Charles Bell Gibson. In his new 
home he rapidly acquired an extensive practice, 
both medical and surgical. His remarkable 
successes in lithotomy, lithotrity, ovariotomy, 
etc., have placed him in the first rank of civil 
surgeons. As a teacher, he is fluent, lucid and 
impressive, and as a writer has contributed many 
instructive and interesting articles to Northern 
and Southern journals. 

The skill and talents of Dr. McGuire have 
been recognized in a flattering manner in all 
sections of the country. Among the positions 
bestowed upon him may be mentioned that of 
President of the Richmond Academy of Medi- 
cine, President of the Association of Medical 
Officers of the Confederate Army and Navy, and 
one of the Vice-Presidents of the International 
Medical Congress. These honors are the re- 
wards of talent, industry, skill and high aspira- 
tion. He is the only surgeon in this country 
who has tied the aorta; has operated fifty-seven 
times for stone in the bladder since his return to 
Richmond. Has contributed numerous articles 
to various journals on gun-shot wounds, diseases 
of the bladder, ovariotomy, etc., besides a de- 
tailed account of the "last wound of General 
(Stonewall) Jackson, his last moments and 
death." He married Mary Stuart, daughter of 
Hon. A. H. Stuart, Secretary of the Interior under 
President Fillmore. He is consulted from all parts 
of the Union, and his name is a household word 
in the South. 



w* 




B. F. MOORE, Esq. 

North Caroltna. 

ARTHOLOMEW FIGURES MOORE 
was born 29th January, 1S01, in Halifax 
county, N. C. The Moores are a nu- 



North Carolina. His father, James Moore, of 
Southampton county, Virginia, was an enter- 
prising and industrious farmer, who, in 1781, at 
the age of 16, being then an orphan, volunteered 
at Beaufort, N. C, as a sailor and served as 
captain's clerk on board the privateer schooner 
" Hannah." After participating in the capture 
of several vessels, he landed at Newburyport, 
Mass., from which place, being unable to obtain 
his prize money, he walked the whole way on 
foot to his home in Southampton county, Va., 
occupying a month in the journey. He after- 
wards devoted himself mainly to agriculture, 
giving especial attention to the most improved 
methods of cultivation ; gave his numerous 
children a good English education, and left a 
handsome estate when he died, at the age of 
eighty-six. The mother of B. F. Moore, Sallie 
Lewis, was a daughter of Colonel Exum Lewis, 
of Edgecombe county, a distinguished Whig of 
the Revolution. He received his preliminary 
education at an old field school in Halifax 
county, and was prepared for college by John B. 
Bobbitt, a graduate of Chapel Hill, who kept a 
famous classical school for half a century in the 
counties of Nash and Franklin. He entered the 
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 
1818, joining the Sophomore class when half 
advanced, and graduated in 1820, having studied 
only two years and a half; Judge W. H. Battle 
and Bishop J. H. Otey, of Tennessee, were 
among his classmates, and President Polk was a 
graduate of the class of 181 8, Mr. Moore's first 
year at the university. He commenced the 
study of the law under Thomas Nicholson Mann, 
one of the hardest students and most intellec- 
tual men of his day, who was afterwards ap- 
pointed Consul to Guatemala, but died of 
consumption in Hampton Roads, on his way to 
his post. After eighteen months' close study of 
the law, he took an extended journey with his 
legal preceptor, to whom he was greatly at- 
tached, and who was travelling for his health 
through North and South Carolina, Georgia, 



Alabama and Tennessee. In the last-mentioned 
merous old family, settled over a large j State he remained a short time to visit his kins- 
portion of the border of Virginia and men, and then continued his travels through 




is. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



SiS 



Kentucky to the mountains in Virginia, and 
back to his home in North Carolina. In 1822 
he obtained his county-court license, and in the 
following year commenced the practice of his 
profession at Nashville, Nash county, N. C. 
The first important case that brought him into 
notice was that of The State vs. Will, in 1832, 
in which a negro was indicted for the murder of 
an overseer, and it was insisted for the prisoner 
that if a slave in defence of his life, and under 
circumstances strongly calculated to excite his 
passions of terror and resentment, kills his over- 
seer, the homicide is by such circumstances miti- 
gated to manslaughter. Mr. Moore was engaged 
for the defence, and argued with great ability 
and zeal. His argument was printed at length 
in 1 Devereux and Battle's Reports, and consid- 
ered so profound and able that it was character- 
ized by Chief-Justice Ruffin and Judge Pearson 
(the late chief-justice) as the finest argument 
ever heard upon that question. It was subse- 
quently received as the foundation of the law in 
cases of the homicide of overseers by negro 
slaves. He remained in Nashville until April, 
1835, when he removed to Halifax county. In 
1836 he was elected to the House of Represent- 
atives, and again in 1840, 1842 and 1844. In 
May, 1848, he removed to Raleigh, and was ap- 
pointed, by Governor W. A. Graham, Attorney- 
General of the State of North Carolina. In 
December of that year he was elected to that 
office by the Legislature, holding it until May, 
1 85 1, when he resigned in consequence of his 
appointment to the Commission for the Revision 
of the Laws of North Carolina. This Commis- 
sion was continued at the session of 1852, and 
the code was reported to the General Assembly 
of 1854, when it was read and passed, with but 
few modifications, into law. He was a member 
. of the committee appointed for its publication, 
which took place in Boston, in 1855. During 
this period he was engaged in an extensive prac- 
tice, principally in the Supreme Court, in which 
at that time but few lawyers, and they of the 
highest reputation, practised. He was an old- 
line Whig in politics, and took an active part in 
opposition to secession, upon the ground that it 



was unnecessary as well as impolitic, as Congress 
and the Supreme Court of the United States 
were opposed to the fanaticism of the Northern 
Abolitionists. He expressed his opinions freely 
in the press and in public, gaining much un- 
popularity in consequence. In 1862, though 
with considerable reluctance, he served on the 
committee appointed by the State to consider 
the claims against North Carolina for services in 
raising troops for the Confederate Government, 
and used his best endeavors to defend the State 
from any exorbitant demands, accepting the 
commission for that purpose only. Both Samuel 
F. Phillips and P. H. Winston, the other mem- 
bers of this committee, were also warm and con- 
sistent supporters of the Union. Mr. Moore, 
during the war, had one of the largest practices 
in Raleigh, more especially in habeas corpus 
cases. He was also most assiduous, in conjunc- 
tion with his wife, in attending to the wants of 
the sick and wounded of both armies at a hos- 
pital which was temporarily established irt 
Raleigh, near his residence. In the June term 
of 1864 he was engaged in the celebrated case 
of Gatlin vs. Walton, in which the question was 
whether a person, who had put in a substitute,- 
under an act of the Confederate Congress, had 
made a contract with the government that re- 
lieved him from future conscription. Mr. Moore 
argued that the substitution was a contract, but 
the court, with a dissenting opinion, decided in 
favor of the Confederate government. At the 
close of the war, together with Governor Swain 
and Mr. William Eaton, of Warren county, he 
was appointed on a committee, from Raleigh, to 
visit Washington, for the purpose of interceding 
with President Johnson for the most lenient 
terms which could be granted for the restoration 
of North Carolina to the Union. He held a 
long personal conference with President John- 
son on all the questions involved, and had the 
satisfaction, in many cases, of obtaining better 
and more lenient terms of pardon than had at 
first seemed possible. He was on several occa- 
sions afterwards summoned to Washington to 
give evidence. 

He was a leading member of the Convention 



5*6 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



appointed by President Johnson for the recon- 
struction of the State, but was opposed, as was 
President Lincoln, to general negro suffrage 
solely because he considered that at that time 
negroes were incompetent to fulfil the duties of 
the suffrage, although he was in favor of admit- 
ting their testimony in the courts of the State. 
A constitution was framed by the Convention 
of 1S66, which conformed in its material pro- 
visions to that already in existence, but it was 
unhappily rejected upon the sole ground that so 
many of the electors were excluded from the 
ballot for want of pardons. The State Consti- 
tution of 1 868 provided for the election of judges 
for a term of years instead of for life, as had been 
the practice from the foundation of the govern- 
ment. Under the judicial system existing prior 
to the great innovation made by the new consti- 
tution of 1S6S, none of the judges had ever 
taken an active part in the politics of the day, 
but soon after the inauguration of the new sys- 
tem the judges, and especially those of the 
Supreme Court, who must have known and felt 
that their election was due to party organization, 
embarked openly in the heated and bitter cam- 
paign for the election of President in 1868, when 
Grant and Colfax were the Republican nomi- 
nees. Whilst this spectacle, so undignified and 
unprecedented in the history of the State, was 
progressing, Mr. Moore drew up a protest against 
such an example and submitted it to above one 
hundred members of the bar for signature ; but 
few of those to whom it was presented declined 
to sign it. Among the signers were two ex- 
Governors, five ex-Judges, six ex-Attorney-Gen- 
erals, several ex-Solicitors, and distinguished 
members of Congress. It was conceived and 
prepared in September, 1S68, during the stormy 
political canvass for the Presidency, and its pub- 
lication designedly deferred until after the close 
of the campaign to avoid its having the appear- 
ance of a partisan document. His purpose was 
to express the disapproval by the bar of the 
conduct of individuals occupying high judicial 
stations. It was published in June, 1S69. The 
publication of a protest conceived in a spirit of 
dignified warning, and expressed in language 



perfectly respectful but forcible and pointed, 
produced in the minds of the judges so much 
agitation that proceedings for contempt of court 
were taken by the Supreme Court against Mr. 
Moore and its other signers. So great was the 
disorder of the court that, without giving to the 
gentlemen who signed the protest any previous 
notice of its intention, an order was hastily made 
disabling them from practising at its bar. A 
little reflection, however, made it apparent to 
the judge that a course of procedure so sum- 
mary, taken against so many and so important 
members of the profession, could find no au- 
thority in judicial precedent or statute regula- 
tion, and would, with absolute certainty, bring 
upon themselves a very great measure of public 
disapprobation, wherefore the proceedings were 
so modified as to put three on actual trial, to 
wit, B. F. Moore, E. G. Haywood, and Thomas 
Bragg ; the sentence of disability still remained 
as to all. Some without notice filed their an- 
swers, but many stood disbarred without even 
being notified of the rule by service, and the 
court proceeded to disable by name all attorneys 
reported by the clerk absolutely from practising 
in the court whether they might on trial prove 
guilty or not. Ex-Judge W. H. Battle, ex- 
Judge D. G. Fowle, ex- Judge Barnes, ex-Judge 
Person,, and the Hon. W. N. H. Smith (now 
Chief-Justice) volunteered their appearance for 
Mr. Moore and the other two signers of the pro- 
test on trial, and on June 19th, the court dis- 
charged the rule with costs, Chief- Justice Pear- 
son remarking that they 'were "not acquitted, 
but excused," and concluding his opinion with 
these words : "We concur with his counsel in 
according to Mr. Moore high encomium for his 
ability, legal learning, integrity, devotion to the 
constitution, unwavering love of the Union, and 
hitherto most consistent and influential support 
of the judicial tribunals of this country." The 
charge made in the protest was substantially that 
each and all the Judges of the Supreme Court 
had warmly participated in the excited politics 
of the day, and it was fully borne out by the 
fact, and is admitted in a recently published 
letter of the late Chief-Justice, that a letter had 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Si7 



been written by Chief-Justice Pearson for the 
press, published with his knowledge, and kept 
for months as a standing article in a leading 
partisan paper, and thousands of copies of it 
were circulated throughout the State as a cam- 
paign document, the avowed object being to 
affect the election in a heated contest for the 
office of President; and also that Judges Dick, 
Rodman, Reade, and Settle were announced in 
the Standard of August 19th, 1868, as being 
appointed by the Republican State Executive 
Committee to high and conspicuous positions 
in an imposing partisan political display of the 
Republican party on September i6th, 1S68, to 
parade under music and banners, and this an- 
nouncement was circulated throughout the State 
with extraordinary parade. The Hon. W. N. 
H. Smith, in concluding the argument, spoke 
of Mr. Mcore in these terms : " My friend and 
client, with the weight of years resting on him, 
pre-eminent for his great judicial learning and 
professional experience, illustrating the judicial 
history of the State upon so. many pages of its 
reports, possessing not less the confidence of the 
preceding and present Supreme Courts of the 
State, than he does the warm regard and affec- 
tion of the numerous profession whose rights and 
immunities in a measure he represents on this 
trial, whose whole life in seasons of darkness 
and disaster, as well as in times of sunshine and 
prosperity, has been marked by a steady, un- 
wavering adherence to principle and the support 
of law and order, and the preservation of those 
forms without which neither can exist, would 
be the last to assail the dignity and prerogatives 
of a tribunal in whose impartiality and firmness 
our only safety lies." It cannot be doubted 
that Mr. Moore was influenced by the purest 
motives and by a sincere desire to preserve the 
dignity of the bench and bar. He afterwards 
published a review of all the proceedings, which 
is bound up with the 63d or 64th volume of the 
North Carolina Reports, in the closing sentences 
of which he expresses this sentiment: "Whether 
the protest was intended to overthrow and de- 
grade or to sustain and elevate the judiciary of 
the State the signers, conscious that their own 



honor would be tarnished by any degradation 
of that judiciary suffered at their hands, most 
cheerfully leave to the judgment of the present 
and all future time. Far be it from their pur- 
pose to justify or excuse a libel on the courts of 
North Carolina. A bar, the leaders of whom 
have practised before its courts^for a quarter of 
a century, could never intend to degrade the 
judiciary of the State which, up to the moment' 
of signing the protest, had proved itself to be 
the great palladium of the liberties of freemen. 
They cannot commit so great a crime. Their 
solemn declaration before God and their country 
made to the court should have been sufficient 
for any man that they never intended that hor- 
rible wickedness. Nothing but the fears, ill 
founded they devoutly hope, of a calamity so 
fathomless in its woes to their native land as a 
demoralized judiciary urged them to sign and 
publish the protest ; and if there linger in the 
minds of their fellow-citizens a single grain of 
doubt that such and such only was their sole 
object, they are entreated to receive again this 
most solemn denial. Let no man ever expect 
to find in their act an excuse for disrespect for 
the courts of the State, but let every citizen feel 
that it is his solemn duty at all times and on 
every occasion to preserve, as far as may be in 
his power, the purity of the court from every 
contagious influence which may surround or 
beset its members ; and though he may both fail 
and fall in the attempt, yet if he be worthy of 
the North Carolina bar as it was, and as it is 
hoped and believed it still is, he will bear within 
his own bosom a consolation which no man can 
take away. The virtuous living and the spirits 
of the patriotic dead who have gone down to 
the tomb will cheer him with impressive ap- 
proval. ' ' The protest and the proceedings taken 
thereon by the court naturally engendered warm 
and unpleasant feelings between that body and 
Mr. Moore ; but in due course of time they sub- 
sided, and Mr. Moore and the Chief-Justice 
were restored to their former relations of friend- 
ship which had been cordial for more than a 
quarter of a century. 

Mr. Moore continued to practise the law with 



S i8 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



great success. In 1870 he entered into partner- 
ship with his son-in-law, Mr. John Gatling, and 
was at the head of the bar in his native State 
until his retirement from the active duties of his 
profession at the commencement of 1877. He 
has throughout his long and busy life been dis- 
tinguished for his ability, learning, integrity, 
devotion to the constitution, and unwavering 
love for the Union. In the late civil war he 
never swerved from his allegiance to the Federal 
government, and his manly courage has ever 
sustained his convictions of right and duty 
against threatened danger. He has always been 
conservative in his politics, and, while he has 
ever held steadily to the Union, he has always 
been an advocate and defender of the rights of 
the States, and deemed it very unwise to deprive 
them of self-government unless done under the 
strict powers of the Federal constitution. He 
maintains that North Carolina was never out of 
the Union, and as a State was entitled to the 
benefits and protection of the Union, and this 
view was adopted in the first ordinance of the 
convention of 1866. He deemed a speedy rec- 
onciliation necessary to restore national frater- 
nity, and was averse to the policy of maintain- 
ing the powers of the government by the use of 
standing armies ; that they were dangerous to 
liberty, and ought not to be kept up, and that 
the military should be kept under strict subor- 
dination to, and be governed by, the civil 
power. Writing previous to the inauguration of 
President Hayes' pacification policy, he says : 

" Prior to the calamity of the late civil war I 
had been for more than thirty years much de- 
voted to investigating the nature and principles 
of our .Federal and State governments, and dur- 
ing that period, having been several times pro- 
foundly exercised as to the true and lawful 
powers of each, not as a politician, but as a 
citizen truly devoted to my country, I was 
unable under my conviction of the solemn 
duties of patriotism to give any excuse for, or 
countenance to, the civil war of 1S61 without 
sacrificing all self-respect. My judgment was 
the instructor of my conscience, and no man 
suffered greater than I as the scenes of battle 



unfolded the bloody carnage of war around and 
in the midst of our homes. I had been taught 
under the deep conviction of my judgment that 
there could be no reliable liberty for my State 
without the Union of the States, and being de- 
voted to her, I felt that I should desert her 
whenever I should aid to destroy the Union. 
I could not imagine a more terrible spectacle 
than that of beholding the sun shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of States dis- 
severed, discordant and belligerent, and on a 
land rent with civil feuds and drenched in fra- 
ternal blood. With this horrible picture of 
anarchy and blood looming before my eyes I 
could not, as a patriot, consent to welcome its 
approach to 'my own and my native land.' 
And truly happy was I when I saw the sun of 
peace rising with the glorious promise to shine 
once more on States equal, free, honored and 
united. And although the promise has been 
long delayed by an unwise policy, and I myself 
may never see the full-orbed sun of liberty shine 
on every part of my country as once it did, yet 
I have strong hopes that my countrymen will 
yet be blessed with that glorious light." 

He married, December 2d, 1828, Miss Louisa 
Boddie, daughter of George Boddie, a farmer 
of prominence in Nash county, N. C. ; she died 
without issue in November, 1829. In April, 
1S35, he married Lucy Williams Boddie, another 
daughter of the same gentleman, and has nine 
children living — five sons and four daughters. 
One of his daughters married Dr. Joseph Parker, 
of Gates county, N. C, another married J. P. 
Leigh, a farmer, of Halifax county, N. C, a 
third married Dr. P. T. Henry, of Granville 
county, and the fourth married John Gatling, 
lawyer, of Raleigh, N. C. Of his sons, B. F. 
Moore is a farmer near Meridian, Mississippi, 
George B. Moore was formerly an officer in 
the Confederate army, Ben. M. Moore is a far- 
mer in Franklin county, N. C, Van R. Moore 
has recently graduated from the University of 
North Carolina, and James Moore is a student 
at that university. 

Since the above sketch was written its subject 
has passed away, breathing his last at his rcsi- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



519 



dence on Wednesday afternoon, November 27th, 
1S78. 

On the following day a meeting of the bar of 
Raleigh was held in the Supreme Court room, 
and it was most numerously and influentially 
attended. Among those present were Chief- 
Justice Smith, Governor Vance, Attorney-Gen- 
eral Kenan, Senator Merrimon, Judge Brooks, 
Judge Fowle, Judge Cox, Judge Howard, Col- 
onel T. C. Fuller, R. H. Battle, H. A. Gilliam, 
J. B. Batchelor, S. A. Ashe, A. M. Lewis, Dis- 
trict-Attorney J. W. Albertson, Jos. A. Engel- 
hard, W. L. Saunders, C. M. Busbee, Robert 
T. Gray, F. H. Busbee, E. R. Stamps, R. C. 
Badger, L. R. Waddcll, Jacob Battle, W. H. 
Bagley, George Wortham, J. C. L. Harris, R. G. 
Lewis, L. S. Overman, Sherwood Haywood, J. 
Eaton Bledsoe, Armistead Jones, B. F. Mon- 
tague and W. H. Kitchen. It was resolved 
that the bar should attend the funeral in a body, 
and a distinguished committee was appointed to 
draft resolutions of respect in memory of the 
deceased, to report to a subsequent meeting of 
the bar. The funeral took place that afternoon, 
the services being conducted in Christ Church, 
and was most numerously attended, many of 
North Carolina's most honored citizens assem- 
bling to pay their last tribute of respect to the 
Father of the North Carolina Bar. The pall- 
bearers were : Governor Vance, Chief-Justice 
Smith, Senator Merrimon, Judge Brooks, Judge 
Fowle, Auditor Love, Judge Strong, Major 
Gilliam, Hon. J. B. Batchelor, Edward Gra- 
ham Flaywood, Esq., Dr. Eugene Grissom and 
R. H. Battle, Esq. The body was interred in 
the cemetery, in a beautiful square, and beneath 
the shadow of an oak — his favorite tree. 

At the adjourned meeting of the bar most 
eloquent tribute to the memory of the deceased 
as a lawyer and a man was paid by Messrs. Wil- 
liam R. Cox, W. H. Battle, J. B. Batchelor and 
Edward Graham Haywood. The speech of Mr. 
Haywood was an elaborate oration of great 
dignity, power and beauty. The resolutions 
adopted set forth that, in the death of Hon. B. F. 
Moore, the bar had lost a great and distinguished 
leader, and society an able and valuable mem 



ber, and the State a pure and representative 
man. Copies of these resolutions were presented 
to the Supreme Court by the Attorney-General, 
and to the Superior Court of Wake county, and 
the resolutions were subsequently recorded upon 
the minutes of each court. 

This sketch cannot be better closed than in 
the words of one of the many journalistic trib- 
utes published on the announcement of his 
death : 

"His sturdy character has left its impress upon 
his times, and in the years to come he will be 
remembered and respected as a wise, honest, 
learned, patriotic man, and loved by his friends, 
his family, and the recipients of his quiet 
charity." 

R. B. HAXALL, Esq. 

Virginia. 

|lCHARD BARTON HAXALL was born 
tj in Petersburg, Va., in 1805. His fa- 
ther, Philip Haxall, came from Exning, 
near Newmarket, England, about 1800, 
^ and first settled in Petersburg, where 
he married Miss Clara Hunter, who was born in 
Kingston, Dinwiddie county, and was lineally 
descended from Pocahontas. In Petersburg 
Philip Haxall invested in water power, but dis- 
covering the superior advantages of Richmond, 
removed there with his family in 1809, when he 
purchased the Columbian Mills, situated on the 
James river, afterwards known as the Haxall 
Mills. At that time they were probably smaller 
than when destroyed by fire in October, 1830, 
when they contained eight pairs of burrs six feet 
in diameter or over. In 1831 the mills were 
rebuilt, enlarged and improved, with ten pairs 
of burrs five and a half feet in diameter. 

R. B. Haxall entered the business in 1824, 
and under the instructions of his father gained a 
thorough insight into the milling business, and 
took an active part in the rebuilding of the 
premises in 183 1, in the latter part of which year 
his father died. The new mills were planned by 
William Richardson, of Baltimore, a superior 
millwright, who also built the first Gallego Mill. 




5 2 ° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



R. B. Haxall succeeded his father, and in 1832 
put the new mills in operation upon the wheat 
crop of that year. With the aid of good prac- 
tical millers, and by careful selections of wheat, 
the Haxall brand steadily increased in reputation, 
and the firm of R. B. Haxall & Co., which rep- 
resented the widow and all the descendants of 
Philip Haxall, became very prosperous. 

The mills, under his management, were stead- 
ily enlarged in buildings and machinery to 
nearly thirty pairs of burrs until July, 1858, 
when he formed a copartnership with Lewis D. 
Crenshaw, who took the active management, 
which he held till his death in December, 1875. 
In April, 1874, the mills were again destroyed 
by fire, but were rebuilt in an unprecedentedly 
short time under the direction of Lewis D. Cren- 
shaw with a completeness of equipment which, 
though still to receive additions, makes them 
already among the best of the kind in this coun- 
try. Since Mr. Crenshaw's death, one building 
has been erected entirely for storage, and the 
whole establishment is now of fully the same 
capacity as at the time of its destruction in 1874. 

On July 1 st, 1876, by the terms of the co- 
partnership, the property became incorporated 
into a joint-stock company — the " Haxall-Cren- 
shaw Company" — of which Richard Barton 
Haxall is the President, his son, Philip Haxall, 
Vice-President, and Lewis D. Crenshaw, Jr., the 
Secretary and Treasurer. 

Mr. Haxall is one of the oldest and most sue* 
cessful merchant-millers in the world. Mill 
proprietors to distinguish them from practical 
millers are termed merchant-millers, and with 
one exception no mill proprietor in Richmond 
in the present century, commencing with Mr. 
Gallego, has been a practical miller; i. c, a 
millstone-dresser. That one exception failed 
for want of commercial knowledge. Mr. Hax- 
all, from personal knowledge of over fifty years, 
generously bears testimony to the worth and ef- 
ficiency of the practical millers who have con- 
tributed so much to the reputation of Richmond 
(lour. 

His attention has not been confined wholly to 
the milling business. At one time he was asso- 



ciated with the Belle Isle Iron Company, en- 
gaged in iron-rolling and the production of 
nails. Cut nails were then made from Swedish 
and Russian iron, but this material, has since 
been superseded by cheaper and probably infe- 
rior iron. He has also devoted much time to 
the promotion of railroad, bank and insurance 
enterprises. For forty years he served as a 
railroad director, and for twenty-five years as a 
bank director. Now, however, he has retired 
from all active participation in outside enter- 
prises, and gives himself entirely to the milling 
business and the management of his estates, 
supervising the operations of the mills to a great 
extent from his home, reading and digesting all 
the mercantile news, and giving the other mem- 
bers of the firm the benefit of his advice and 
counsel. 

Mr. Haxall resides at his country-seat, Rock- 
land, near Montpelier, the country-seat of Pres- 
ident Madison, which also belonged to Mr. 
Haxall, but was sold in consequence of his pref- 
erence for Rockland for its superior fertility. 
He is largely interested in agriculture, having 
in addition to about a thousand acres in Vir- 
ginia, several farms in Delaware and other States. 
He is an active member of the Executive Com- 
mittee of the State Agricultural Society of Vir- 
ginia. At Rockland he gives more particular 
attention to the. raising of live-stock, especially 
horses, for which he has always shown great 
fondness. He is a great rider and very active, 
showing the way "across country" to any one, 
although over seventy-four years of age. 

An earnest member 'of the Episcopal Church, 
Mr. Haxall is a regular attendant at the Monu- 
mental Church, Richmond. In politics he is an 
old-line Whig, but has always studiously avoided 
any active participation in party warfare, and 
has never sought or held office of any kind. 

He married Miss Octavia Robinson, daughter 
of John Robinson, Esq., a descendant of an old 
English family, who was Clerk of the Circuit 
Court of the city of Richmond, and sister of 
Conway Robinson, one of the leading members 
of the bar of Washington, D. C, and Moncure 
Robinson, a distinguished engineer and railroad 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH, 



S2i 




capitalist. He has eight children living: one 
daughter is the wife of Alexander Cameron, an 
extensive tobacco manufacturer of Richmond. 

Mr. Haxall takes rank as a singularly able and 
successful man of business ; under his manage- 
ment the mill property has not only largely in- 
creased in value, but has for many years been 
one of the chief factors of industrial life in 
Richmond. 

PHILIP HAXALL, Esq. 

Virginia. 

HILIP HAXALL, the son of Richard 
Barton Haxall, whose sketch precedes 
this, was born January ist, 1840, in 
^Z Richmond, Va. He was educated at a 
private academy, and went from thence 
to the University of Virginia, which he left in 
i860. 

After a year spent in travelling he, on the 
outbreak of the war, enlisted as a private in the 
Fourth Virginia Cavalry, and was soon promoted 
to the staff, where he served as Lieutenant, and 
afterwards as Captain, in the Adjutant-General's 
Department. Previous to the close of the war 
he was on the staff as Adjutant-General of Gen- 
eral Fitz Lee's division of cavalry, and was 
slightly wounded twice. 

After the surrender he entered the firm of 
Haxall, Crenshaw & Co., and on its reorganiza- 
tion in July, 1876, became Vice-President of the 
Haxall-Crenshaw Company. The management 
of the concern now practically devolves upon 
him. Until within a year or two their transac- 
tions have been almost wholly for export; Brazil, 
the West Indies and Great Britain being the 
principal markets. In the first-named country 
they have for agents the extensive English house 
of Phipps Bros. & Co., of Rio Janeiro, the head 
of which is the younger son of a noble English 
family. Special brands are manufactured to 
meet the peculiar requirements of each of these 
markets, and in the season of 1877 they began, 
in addition, to give particular attention to the 
domestic trade, which had been theretofore 
somewhat neglected. The yearly average of 



manufacture is about 200,000 barrels, but the 
mills can produce 1,500 barrels a day, although 
1,000 barrels is about the daily quota. The 
flour barrels are manufactured largely by them- 
selves as well as outside, under their own super- 
vision. They have millwright, blacksmith and 
repair shops on the premises ; build their own 
wagons, and own most of the residences of the 
hands employed at the mills. There are, at pres- 
ent, forty-two pairs of burrs on wheat, and six 
pairs on corn, the largest number in any one mill 
in this country, and the mill itself is the largest 
in the United States. 

Mr. Philip Haxall is Vice-President for Vir- 
ginia of the Millers' National Association, and 
a member of the Executive Committee. He is 
also a Director of the Richmond, Fredericks- 
burg and Potomac Railroad. 

Endowed with all the energy of vigorous 
youth, he manifests the caution of maturer years, 
and is, by common consent, acknowledged to be 
one of the keenest judges and most skilled buy- 
ers of grain in the trade. He has always been 
distinguished by the solidity of his understand- 
ing, and his correct judgment of men and of 
business ventures. Combining caution with 
boldness in his operations, prompt, industrious, 
energetic and far-seeing, he has already secured 
a high reputation in the mercantile community. 

He is an accomplished horseman ; the pro- 
moter and President of the Richmond Riding 
Club, and to his exertions is due the success of 
the Westmoreland Riding Club, which includes 
among its members the elite of Richmond. 

He married Miss Mary Triplett, one of Rich- 
mond's most beautiful and accomplished belles, 
and daughter of William S. Triplett, President 
of the Old Dominion Nail Works, Belle Isle. 

Of the Haxall mills, as at present existing, 
the principal buildings are the flour-mill proper, 
the wheat-house, general store-house, corn-mill, 
blacksmith and wheelwright shops, millwright- 
shop, cooper-shops, residences of the millers, 
and the stables. The mill and its appurtenances 
are all driven by water-power. The motive- 
power is furnished by six overshot wheels, each 
eighteen feet in diameter, which, together, sup- 



522 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ply three hundred horse-power, and three tur- 
bines ; one drives all the wheat-cleaning machin- 
ery, another drives the corn-mill, and the third 
drives the machinery in the millwright and repair 
shop. The wheat-house, which adjoins the mill, 
is eight stories high, with a storage capacity of 
70,000 bushels, 10,000 bushels being frequently 
received in the course of one day. Here the 
wheat is received, weighed, graded, and stored 
in various garners, according to variety and 
grade. In this building also the wheat is cleaned, 
and afterwards each variety is conveyed to the 
different garners of the mill as it may be needed. 
Among the wheat-cleaning apparatus are the 
following machines : two separators on seventh 
floor, two smutters and separators on the sixth 
floor, two decorticators on the fifth floor, two 
smutters on the fourth floor, and two Becker 
brushes on the third floor. These machines are 
placed in the order named, one above the other, 
and the wheat passes through them from the top 
story down, so as to clean two streams of wheat 
at the same time. Large air-chambers are at- 
tached to the cleaning apparatus, and into them 
is blown the refuse, which is all sold. In this 
same building are four large grain-scales, hold- 
ing one hundred and fifty bushels each, and a 
corresponding number of elevators. There are 
two storehouses, one seventy by one hundred 
feet, and six stories high, in which are located 
the. various offices, and the other eighty by fifty- 
two, and seven stories high, exclusive of the 
basement. The flour-mill proper is eighty-five 
by sixty feet, and eight stories high. It contains 
forty-two run of burrs — a greater number than is 
contained by any other mill in America. It can 
turn out conveniently 1,200 barrels a day, though 
the capacity can easily be worked up to 1,500 
barrels, and the annual production is over 200,- 
000 barrels, which requires about 1,000,000 
bushels of wheat. Besides the burrs there are 
in the mill building eight bran-dusters, twelve 
purifiers, twelve dusters, and one hundred and 
twenty-two bolting reels. In addition to this 
there is a large amount of improved machinery 
and appliances suitable to a first-class mill. 
Nothing is stored in this building, the grain 




flowing in as it is needed, and the flour rolling 
out as it is packed into either of the two store- 
houses, which have a combined capacity of 
22,000 barrels. The corn-mill has six run of 
esopus stones, with a capacity of about 1,000 
bushels of corn per day. Only carefully selected 
white Southern corn is employed, for which 
there is a large demand both in Virginia and 
North Carolina. 

HON. THOMAS J. JARVIS. 

North Carolina. 

HOMAS J. JARVIS was bom in Curri- 
tuck county, January iSth, 1836. His 
father, Rev. B. H. Jarvis, was a devout 
and useful member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, whose reputation for 
holiness and pureness of living will long survive 
him. Owing to his father's straitened pecu- 
niary circumstances young Jarvis had but slender 
opportunities for acquiring a liberal education, 
the work of the farm demanding almost his 
entire attention. After a short time, however, 
he was enabled to enter Randolph-Macon Col- 
lege, in Virginia, January 18th, 1855, where at 
first he was under great disadvantages from the 
limited time that he was able to afford for his 
preparation for college. An indomitable will 
and untiring industry enabled him, however, to 
overcome all difficulties ; when a fresh obstacle 
arose from the inability of his father to maintain 
him during his collegiate course. He would 
unquestionably have been compelled to return 
home but for the thoughtful kindness of Mr. 
John Sanderson, who supplied him with means 
to complete his education. Not even during 
vacation did he relax his efforts, but applied 
himself to teaching in a common school for one 
quarter during each summer, and, in spite of all 
these disadvantages, was enabled to graduate 
with his class in 1S60. He then commenced 
teaching school in Pasquotank county, and con- 
tinued there until June, 1861, when he entered 
the Confederate army, serving first in the Seven- 
teenth Regiment North Carolina troops, and 
afterwards in the Eighth Regiment. Captain 




i^^^iJ^A^t^^k 






REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



523 



Jarvis shared with his command all its hardships 
and dangers until May 17th, 1S64, when he was 
badly wounded in a desperate fight near Drury's 
Bluff, Va. ; the ball entered his right arm about 
two inches below the shoulder-joint, and passed 
thence diagonally through the body, coming out 
near the spine. The difficult operation of resec- 
tion was performed, but life hung trembling in 
the balance for many months. His vigorous 
constitution, however, finally proved victorious, 
but his military career was at an end, for his arm 
was still shattered and helpless in the sling when 
the war came to an end. After the war he be- 
came a merchant in Columbia, Tyrrell county, 
where he had three years successful business. In 
1S65 he was elected, by his native county, as 
representative to Andrew Johnson's Convention, 
receiving every vote but fourteen cast. In 1868 
he was elected to the Legislature from Tyrrell 
county, and in the meanwhile had studied law 
and received his licence to practise law from the 
Supreme Court, June term, 1866. In 1870 he 
was re-elected to the Legislature from Tyrrell 
county, and was made Speaker of the House of 
Representatives. His success in the chair was 
fully equal to that he had attained on the floor, 
and there is no better presiding officer in North 
Carolina to this day. In 1872 he was a candi- 
date for elector for the State at large on the 
Greeley ticket, as he had been for his district on 
the Seymour and Blair ticket in 1868. In 1872 
he removed to Pitt county, where he has since 
continued to reside. In 1875 he was nominated 
by acclamation by the Democratic convention 
of Pitt county for a seat in the Constitutional 
Convention of that year, and rendered conspicu- 
ous and efficient service. In 1876, having re- 
ceived the nomination of the Democratic party 
as its candidate for Lieutenant-Governor, he 
made a thorough canvass of the State, winning 
hosts of friends everywhere for himself and the 
cause he advocated, and took the oath of office 
as Lieutenant-Governor, January 1st, 1877. 
Possessing a singularly well-balanced judgment, 
that can be confidently relied on under the most 
difficult and trying circumstances, indomitable 
courage, the strictest personal integrity, and a 




rare faculty of controlling men by thorough or- 
ganization and discipline, Lieutenant-Governor 
Jarvis may confidently look forward to yet higher 
honors. 

EDMUND BURKE HAYWOOD, A. M., M. D. 

c, North Carolina. 

DMUND BURKE HAYWOOD was 
born at Raleigh, N. C, January 13th, 
1825. The Haywoods are of English 
extraction, residing originally in Wor- 
cestershire, England, which they left 
for America about the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century, settling first in New York, but 
finding the climate too cold they moved further 
south and finally located themselves in Edge- 
combe county, N. C. The father of the subject 
of this sketch was Hon. John Haywood, a plan- 
ter of Raleigh and its first Mayor, and Treasurer 
of the State of North Carolina from 1787 to 
1827, after whom Haywood county and town in 
the State was named ; he was the first vestryman 
elected for Christ Church, Raleigh. His father's 
first cousin, John Haywood, an eminent writer 
and jurist, was distinguished for his sound legal 
learning and clear perception ; he was elected, 
in 1 79 1, Attorney-General of the State, and in 
1794, Judge of the Superior Court of North 
Carolina, which position he resigned in 1804, 
and afterwards became Judge of the Supreme 
Court of Tennessee ; he was the author of a 
"Manual of the Laws of North Carolina," " Hay- 
wood's Justice," " History of Tennessee," and 
many works on scientific subjects, and was also 
the compiler of the Supreme Court Reports of 
Tennessee. Chief-Justice Henderson, of North 
Carolina, in one of his judicial opinions, remarked 
of this distinguished man, substantially: "That 
he disparaged neither the living nor the dead 
when he said that an abler man than John Hay- 
wood never appeared at the bar or sat on the 
bench of North Carolina." His "History of Ten- 
nessee " is accurate and valuable. His grand- 
father, William Haywood, of Edgecombe county, 
filled various offices, both civil and military, and 
was a true patriot and useful citizen. He ap- 



5 2 4 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



peared in court in 1765 and presented a com- 
mission from the King appointing him Colonel 
of the County of Edgecombe. The Stamp 
Act agitation coming on soon after, Colonel 
Haywood promptly espoused the cause of the 
colonies, and was appointed Chairman of the 
Committee of Safety in Edgecombe by the con- 
vention at Hillsboro in 1775. He was member 
for Edgecombe county of the State Congress 
held at Halifax, April 4th, 1776, and of the 
State Congress which met at the same place 
November 12th, 1776, and formed the Consti- 
tution of the State, and one of the Committee 
which framed that instrument ; he was elected 
one of the Counsellors of the State, the first 
ever elected in North Carolina, December, 1 776. 
His mother, Eliza Eagles Williams, was a daugh- 
ter of John Pugh Williams, who, at the provin- 
cial Congress held April, 1776, at Halifax, N. 
C, of which William Haywood was a member, 
was made Captain of the North Carolina troops 
in the Edenton District, and afterwards attained 
to the rank of Colonel ; he was one of those 
who, in the times that tried men's souls, stood 
up for their country and their rights and liber- 
ties. The Hon. Benjamin Williams, brother of 
John Pugh Williams, was elected Governor of 
North Carolina in 1799, and to the State Senate 
in 1807, at which session he was again elected 
Governor, and in 1809 became a second time a 
member of the State Senate. One of Dr. E. B. 
Haywood's brothers, Dr. Fabius J. Haywood, 
is a distinguished physician of Raleigh, N. C, 
but has now retired from the practice of his pro- 
fession ; another, George W. Haywood, was an 
eminent lawyer of Raleigh, N. C, but in con- 
sequence of increasing deafness was compelled 
to abandon the practice of his profession, and 
is now a planter in Alabama. His sister, Miss 
Eliza Eagles Haywood, was a lady of remarkable 
intellectual and conversational powers, and the 
most distinguished lady in Raleigh in her day; 
her society was much sought after by the best 
intellects of that time, and she was distinguished 
alike for her great intellectual capacity and her 
moral and social virtues. The Hon. William 
Henry Haywood, United Stales Senator for 



North Carolina from 1843 to 1S46, was his first- 
cousin. Dr. Haywood's primary education was 
commenced under the Rev. Dr. McPheeters, at 
Raleigh, and continued at the Raleigh Academy, 
a well-known educational establishment of that 
day under Silas Bigelow and J. M. Lovejoy. 
He entered the University of North Carolina, 
joining an advance class, and, until compelled 
to leave by ill health, took first and second dis- 
tinction. Among his classmates were United 
States Senator M. W. Ransom, United States 
Senator John Pool, and General Johnston Petti- 
grew, who was regarded as the finest mathema- 
tician of his day. He studied medicine at the 
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, whence 
he graduated M. D. April 7th, 1849, and at 
once commenced the active practice of his pro- 
fession in Raleigh. In 1850 he became a mem- 
ber of the Medical Society of the State of North 
Carolina, and continued to practise with con- 
stantly increasing success until the outbreak of 
the war. In May, 1861, he joined the Raleigh 
Light Infantry and was elected their surgeon. 
The authorities being fully alive to the neces- 
sity of selecting men of administrative ability for 
hospital duty, Dr. Haywood was sent by Gov- 
ernor Ellis on a tour of inspection and observa- 
tion to the military hospitals on Morris Island 
and at Fort Sumter, S. C. He was appointed 
Surgeon of the North Carolina State troops, and 
placed in charge of the Fair Grounds Hospital, 
May nth, 1S61, and President of a Board of 
Surgeons to examine applications for the posi- 
tion of Surgeon to the North Carolina troops 
July 15th, 1S61. He was appointed Surgeon 
in the Confederate States Army, August 1st, 
1862, and placed in charge of the General 
Military Hospitals at Raleigh, N. C, during 
the years 1862-63-64-65, and at Seabrook's 
Hospital during the fights around Richmond. 
In the same year he became President of the 
Medical Board for granting discharges and fur- 
loughs from the Confederate States Army for 
Raleigh, N. C, and Acting Medical Director 
in the Confederate States Army for the Depart- 
ment of North Carolina. He remained in 
charge of the wounded Confederate soldiers 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



525 



long after the close of hostilities, and it was not 
until the 4th of July, 1S65, tha„ the last was 
discharged cured and he resumed civil practice. 
He was elected Vice-President of the Medical 
Society of the State of North Carolina, June 1st, 
1866, and elected to the chair of Surgery of the 
Board of Medical Examiners for the State of 
North Carolina for six years, June 6th, 1S66. 
On May 22d, 1868, he was elected President of 
the Medical Society of the State of North Caro- 
lina, and the honorary degree of A. M. was con- 
ferred on him by the University of North Caro- 
lina, June 4th, 186S. Upon retiring from the 
Presidency of the Medical Society of the State 
of North Carolina in 1869, he delivered a vale- 
dictory address at Salisbury, entitled "The 
Physician, his relations to the community and 
the law," in which he sets forth in clear and 
forcible language the moral heroism and self- 
sacrifice of the conscientious physician's career. 
The necessity for habits of close observation to 
the exclusion of theories is insisted upon, and 
the great importance of a more extended knowl- 
edge of medical jurisprudence is urged with 
great acumen and ability. This address was 
published by request of the Medical Society. 

At the organization of the Raleigh Academy 
of Medicine in 1870, he became a member. In 
1871 he was elected a member of the Committee 
on Publication of the Transactions of the Med- 
ical Society of the State of North Carolina, and 
also filled that office in 1872 and 1873. ^ e was 
elected Secretary of the Raleigh Academy of 
Medicine, January, 1872, and in the same year 
. was appointed by the Medical Society of the 
State a member of the board to examine drug- 
gists. In January, 1S72, he brought suit at a 
special term of Wake County Superior Court to 
establish the right of physicians and surgeons to 
extra compensation when summoned as medical 
experts. *he Supreme Court on appeal decided 
in Dr. Haywood's favor, Chief- Justice Pearson 
delivering the opinion. In 1873 ne was elected 
a member of the Board of Censors by the Med- 
ical Society of the State, and in March of that 
• year elected corresponding member of the Gynae- 
cological Society of Boston, Mass. In January, 



1874, he was elected President of the Raleigh 
Academy of Medicine, and was a delegate in 
October, 1875, t0 tne Annual Session of the 
Association of Medical Officers of the late Con- 
federate States Army and Navy held in Rich- 
mond, Va. Although opposed politically to the 
party in power at that time, he was appointed a 
member of the Board of Directors of the Insane 
Asylum of North Carolina for the years 1865 
and 1S71, and afterwards for 1874-75-76-77- 
78, and has been President of the Board for 

1875, 1877, and 1878. He has always been 
indefatigable in promoting the comfort and wel- 
fare of the insane, and when the General As- 
sembly of North Carolina in March, 1875, passed 
an act to provide for the colored insane, and 
appropriated $10,000 per annum for the estab- 
lishment at the Marine Hospital building, in 
Wilmington, of a Branch Asylum, he conclu- 
sively pointed out the impossibility of rendering 
that building suitable for such a purpose, and 
urged upon the General Assembly the necessity 
of appropriating sufficient to build an asylum 
for the colored insane. A commission was in 
consequence appointed, and a site has been se- 
lected at Goldsborough. In his re )ort as Presi- 
dent of the Board of Directors of the Insane 
Asylum for 1877, after showing by statistics that 
the average expense per head for the insane in 
the North Carolina Asylum was far below that 
of asylums in other parts of the Union, he makes 
an urgent and eloquent appeal for an appropria- 
tion which should at least place them on equality 
with those of other States. He was a delegate 
from the Medical Society of the State of North 
Carolina to the American Medical Association 
in the years 1S69, 1S70, 1875, and l8 7 6 . ar] d 
to the International Medical Congress held in 
Philadelphia in September, 1S76. 

Dr. Haywood, in the course of his extensive 
practice, has performed successfully most of the 
more important surgical operations. In August, 
1874, he performed the Cesarean section with 
success, the mother living nine days, and the 
child thirteen hours. In 1874 lie also operated 
on four cases of strangulated inguinal hernia, of 
which two were cured. In 1875 he operated 



526 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



successfully in two cases of lacerated perineum, 
and has operated more frequently for strangu- 
lated femoral hernia, umbilical hernia, and 
strangulated inguinal hernia than any surgeon 
in North Carolina. In 1869 he successfully per- 
formed ligation of the right-external iliac artery 
for traumatic aneurism of femoral artery, the 
first operation of the kind in North Carolina, 
and the case was considered so important that 
it was published in pamphlet form by order of 
the Raleigh Academy of Medicine and the North 
Carolina Medical Society. Since the war he 
has removed several cancerous tumors of the 
mamma?. He was the first to use anaesthetics 
in obstetrics and puerperal convulsions in North 
Carolina in 1850. In April, 1869, he assisted 
Dr. Washington Atlee, of Philadelphia, in per- 
forming at Raleigh an operation for ovariotomy; 
the patient was next day left entirely in Dr. 
Haywood's charge and recovered, and has since 
been the mother of three children. His time 
has been so incessantly occupied by the demands 
of his extensive practice that he has had but 
little time for authorship, but among his con- 
tributions to medical literature may be men- 
tioned : '•' Report of an operation for traumatic 
aneurism of femoral artery, cured by ligature" 
— to the Confederate States Medical and Surgical 
Journal, 1864 ; " Report of a case of compound 
comminuted fracture of middle and lower thirds 
of both bones of right leg," "Comminuted frac- 
ture of right femur," "Compound fracture of 
left femur just above the condyles," to the 
Transactions of the Medical Society of the State 
of North Carolina, 1867. A paper on several 
surgical cases describing the removal of various 
tumors, to the Transactions of the Medical 
Society of North Carolina, 186S; "Report of 
a successful operation for traumatic aneurism of 
the superficial palmar arch," "A case of crani- 
otomy, and operation for vesicovaginal fistula," 
" Report of a successful operation for compound 
comminuted fracture of cranium with extensive 
depression and several large fragments driven 
into the brain," in the Transactions of the Med- 
ical Society of North Carolina, 1S71 ; " Report 
of a case of total necrosis of diaphysis of the 



tibia, periosteum not necessary for osteo-gene- 
sis," "Report of a case of membranous croup, 
tracheotomy successfully performed and the 
child entirely recovered," "Report of a case 
of amputation of the right thigh at the upper 
third for gelatinous arthritis," in the Transac- 
tions of the Medical Society of North Carolina, 
1872 ; " Report of an operation for fistula in ano 
with the elastic ligature," in the Transactions 
of the Medical Society of North Carolina, 1S74. 
Dr. Haywood is a member and vestryman of 
Christ Episcopal Church, Raleigh, of which 
the Rev. Dr. Marshall is the Rector ; a mem- 
ber of the Board of Directors of the Presby- 
terian School, Raleigh, and Medical Director 
of the North Carolina Life Insurance Company, 
and Medical Examiner for the Mutual Life and 
Equitable Insurance Companies of New York 
for Raleigh, N. C. Dr. Haywood holds a dis- 
tinguished position in the public esteem of his 
native State, well worthy of the long line of 
illustrious ancestry from whom he is descended. 
His high professional rank is indicated in what 
has been given above. Successful in every de- 
partment of the medical art, he is distinguished 
especially as a surgeon, possessing as he does the 
requisite nerve, cool judgment, and decision of 
character in an extraordinary degree. Fully 
abreast in the forward march of his profession, 
he displays a due appreciation of all its resources 
for the relief of human suffering, and is prompt 
to accept responsibility and to win success, by 
a bold and intelligent confidence that accom- 
plishes the best results. From the members of 
his profession, as well as from the general pub- 
lic, he enjoys the highest respect and esteem, 
for the variety and depth of his attainments and 
the unwearied devotion to duty that he has ever 
displayed. His love for his fellow-men has 
been attested by his long and arduous services 
in behalf of the charities of North Carolina, and 
especially in the promotion of the welfare of the 
insane. His high and spotless character, his 
patriotic services, and the nameless magic of his 
personal influence enabled him to stand firmly 
at a public post, in the defence of the vital in- % 
terests of the stricken and helpless insane, in the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



S27 



very midst of furious political storms, which 
passed him by as unscathed as the light-house 
at whose base the ocean waves may dash in vain. 
But, bold and unshrinking in the path of duty, 
he is naturally modest and retiring, and his 
honors have all been thrust upon him. To 
him apparently nothing is so welcome as the 
unobserved performance of the laborious work 
'of his profession. Dr. Haywood is above the 
ordinary stature, quiet and composed in man- 
ner, with a most thoughtful and impressive 
countenance lit up by eyes of keen and search- 
ing power. Somewhat reserved in ordinary 
approach, his personal bearing is always im- 
pressive, and carries with it the stamp of direct- 
ness of character and lofty and noble aims and 
feelings ; he is both warm and outspoken in 
defence of right and justice, despising the mean 
and false, and firm and unwavering in his friend- 
ships. He has an intuitive knowledge of human 
nature, with great decision of character and a 
fixed determination that ensures success. With 
an unusually affectionate disposition towards the 
members of his own family, he combines a kind- 
ness and consideration for the interests of the 
younger members of his profession, which has 
encouraged many a weary struggler on the up- 
ward path to success. A patriot, a lover of 
mankind, a true friend, and a sincere Christian, 
few men hold to-day so enviable a place in the 
hearts of their fellow-citizens as Dr. Edmund 
Burke Haywood. It is hoped that, with the 
leisure that comes with advancing years, Dr. 
Haywood may employ his valued pen still fur- 
ther to grace the medical literature of his State 
with the treasures of his rich experience. 

He married, in November, 1850, Lucy A. 
Williams, daughter of Alfred Williams, planter 
and bookseller, of Raleigh. He has one daugh- 
ter and six sons, of whom Edmund Burke Hay- 
wood is a farmer in Wake county, N. C, Alfred 
Williams Haywood, a rising young lawyer of 
Raleigh, N. C, Hubert Haywood, a recent 
graduate at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, 
New York, Ernest Haywood, a student at the 
University of North Carolina, and the two 
youngest are at the High School, Raleigh, 




DR. S. M. BEMISS. 

Louisiana. 

; AMUEL MERRIFIELD BEMISS was 
born, October 15th, 1821, in Nelson 
county, Ky. The Bemiss family are 
descended from Welsh ancestors, who 
emigrated to this country at a very 
early period and settled in Worthington, Mass. 
They were known as settlers in Massachusetts as 
early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
and numbers of their descendants are now dis- 
tributed throughout that State. The grand- 
father of the subject of this sketch, James Be- 
miss, at the commencement of the Revolutionary 
war enlisted in the army, and rendered efficient 
service in the struggle for independence; he was 
disabled at the battle of Bennington, and re- 
turned home broken down in health and re- 
duced in circumstances. John Bemiss, his 
third son and father of Dr. S. M. Bemiss, was 
at an early age thrown on his own resources. 
By his own unaided efforts he was enabled to 
enter the medical profession, in which he after- 
wards attained a very high position ; he married 
Elizabeth Bloomer, a native of the State of New 
York, and in 181 7 retired from the active duties 
of his profession. From an early age he was of 
a religious turn of mind, which grew with his 
growth, and culminated in a desire to become a 
minister of the gospel. In 1830 he was ordained 
a minister of the Presbyterian Church, and con- 
tinued to fulfil the duties of his office with great 
acceptance until his death in 1851, at the age of 
seventy-eight years. 

Samuel M. Bemiss received his preliminary 
education under the instruction of his father 
and from private tutors. He read medicine in 
the office of Dr. Samuel Merrifield, of Bloom- 
field, Ky., for three years, and then entered the 
Medical Department of the University of New 
York, whence he graduated M. D. in 1846. In 
conjunction with Dr. Merrifield he practised 
medicine in Bloomfield from 1842 to 1850, and 
afterwards- with Dr. Joshua Gore in the same 
city until 1853. In the latter year he removed 
to Louisville, where he was associated with Dr. 



528 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Benjamin Wible until 1862, when that gentle- 
man entered the Confederate army. Dr. Be- 
miss was appointed in 1858 Professor of Clinical 
Medicine in the University of Louisville ; in 
1859 Professor of Hygiene and Medical Juris- 
prudence, and in 1S61 Professor of Materia 
Medica and Therapeutics in the same institution. 
He remained in Louisville during part of 1862, 
but in consequence of the imprisonment of many 
sympathizers with the Confederate cause, and 
being threatened with the same fate himself, he 
determined on joining his fortunes with the 
South, and entered the Confederate army. He 
became acting surgeon in the Provisional army 
at Tunnel Hill, Ga., where he was engaged in 
hospital service. In January, 1S63, he received 
the appointment of full surgeon in the Confed- 
erate army, and was ordered to Virginia, where 
he was placed on the Board of Medical Examin- 
ers at Hamilton's Crossing. In April, 1863, he 
was ordered to the West, and placed in charge 
of the hospital at Cherokee Springs, Ga. After 
the battle of Chickamauga, he was ordered with 
his hospitals to Newnan, Ga., and, December 
1st, 1863, was appointed Assistant Medical 
Director of Hospitals in the office of Dr. S. LI. 
Stout, Medical Director of Hospitals in the army 
of Tennessee. In 1864 he received the appoint- 
ment of Medical Director in charge of the hos- 
pitals in the rear of the army of Tennessee, 
which position he continued to hold until the 
surrender in April, 1S65. 

After the war, he returned to Louisville, re- 
sumed the practice of medicine, and was ap- 
pointed Professor of Physiology and Pafhology 
in the University of Louisville. In 1S66, having 
accepted the Chair of the Theory and Practice 
of Medicine and Clinical Medicine in the 
Medical Department of the University of Louis- 
iana, he removed to New Orleans, where he has 
since continued to reside and to hold that pro- 
fessorship. In 1 866 he visited Europe, making 
an extended tour of the hospitals in Great 
Britain, France, etc., etc. In October, 1878, he 
accepted the Chairmanship of the Commission 
appointed to investigate and report upon the 
origin and progress of the epidemic of yellow 



fever in various parts of the United States. He 
went over the whole of the ground, visiting a 
large majority of the infected cities and towns — 
examining and investigating in detail — and, in 
conjunction with Dr. Jerome Cochran, did 
nearly all the practical work of the Commis- 
sion. A report was presented at the meeting 
of the Public Health Association at Richmond, 
Va., November 22d, 1878. In the following 
December Dr. Bemiss was appointed a member 
of the Board of Experts appointed by Congress 
to investigate the yellow fever epidemic of 1S78, 
of which Dr. John M. Woodworth, then Super- 
vising Surgeon-General of the Marine Hospital 
Service, and since deceased, was the President. 
Including the thirty-four cities and towns visited 
by the Yellow Fever Commission, which was 
merged into the Board of Experts, more than 
fifty localities were carefully and personally ex- 
amined previous to the 15th of January, when, 
in consequence of the urgent demand for public 
health legislation during that session of Congress, 
the Board convened in Washington. Their 
final report was made January 29th, 1879, and, 
as a result of their conclusions, a commission 
was sent to the perpetually infected ports of the 
West Indies to make a more thorough study of 
the yellow fever than had hitherto been under- 
taken ; and in March following a National Board 
of Health was appointed. Of this Board, Dr. 
Bemiss was appointed a member and also Chair- 
man of the Committee on Epidemics and Quar- 
antine, with his head-quarters at New Orleans. 

Dr. Bemiss was senior editor of the Ncta 
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal from 1S68 
to 1S72, and has occupied the same position 
from 1S73 until the present time. Among his 
more prominent contributions to the literature of 
his profession may be mentioned : " Report on 
the Influence of Marriages of Consanguinity upon 
Offspring," Transactions American Medical As- 
sociation, 185S; " Essay on Croup," Louisville 
Review, 1S56 ; "Test Trials of Various Reme- 
dies in the Wards of the Charity Hospital," New 
Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, 1S76; 
"Case of Aphasia with Autopsy." 1S67; "Ob- 
servations on Pneumonia," reprinted from the 





£^V^2' ^W^*^ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



529 



New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, 
1G78. 

Dr. Bemiss was for several years a member of 
the Board of Health of New Orleans. He is a 
member of the American Medical Association, 
and was its Secretary in 1858, and Vice-President 
in 1868 ; member of the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons, Louisville, of which he has been 
Secretary and Vice-President ; member of the 
Kentucky State Medical Society, in which he 
has held the offices of Treasurer and Secretary ; 
member of the Boston Gynaecological Society ; 
Senior Vice-President of the State Medical As- 
sociation of Louisiana ; and Professor of the 
Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical 
Medicine in the Medical Department of the 
University of Louisiana. 

He was married October 16th, 1849, to Mary 
Frances Lockert, daughter of Eli Lockert, of 
Clarksville, Tenn. He has six children; his 
eldest son, Dr. John Harrison Bemiss, is prac- 
tising medicine in Manai, in the Hawaiian 
Islands, and another son, Eli Lockert Bemiss, a 
graduate of the University of Virginia, is study- 
ing law. 

THOMAS JENKINS SEMMES, Esq. 
Louisiana. 

'HOMAS JENKINS SEMMES was born 
December 16th, 1824, at Georgetown, 
D. C, and is the son of Raphael 
Semmes, a prominent merchant of that 
place. The Semmes family are of 
French and English descent, and were among 
the first settlers in Maryland. A member of the 
family, Middleton Semmes, when a Judge of the 
Court of Appeals of Maryland, discovered, in 
seeking' for a chain of title to some one's prop- 
erty among some old colonial papers, the record 
showing that ' ' Joseph Semmes, of Normandy, 
in France," was, by order of the Council, natu- 
ralized to enable him to hold land. Mr. Mid- 
dleton Semmes often spoke of it as the first 
naturalization in America, and the date was 
1640. Other parties were subsequently natural- 
ized, three or four at a time. A singular coin- 
34 




cidence is that on the Virginia shore of the 
Potomac river, opposite the Semmes property, 
some high cliffs are called to this day Normandy 
Cliffs, and Normandy is noted for its cliffs upon 
the seashore. From the beginning of the set- 
tlement of Maryland the name of Joseph has 
gone through every generation of the family. 
Many years ago Father Vawhorseigh discovered . 
in some old house or church in Charles county, 
Md., a strong-bound Latin prayer-book, with 
the Mass and Vespers and all the prayers in 
Latin, printed in Belgium. It had, in very pale 

writing, the name of Joseph Semmes and 

Neville (the book was stolen from the family 
during the war, and the Christian name of the 
Neville cannot be remembered), but it showed 
that Joseph Semmes had married a Neville, of 
England. In the book was pasted a steel en- 
graved coat-of-arms of "George Neville," with 
the motto "Ne vile vellis" on it, and there was 
written or painted, in glossy black, but little 
faded, " 1640." The Semmes family were also 
connected with the Talliaferro family, who are 
descendants of one Talliafeur, who had the 
privilege, as a member of the family recently 
read, of opening the battle of Hastings. This 
was discovered on reading Paine's " History of 
English Literature." The Talliaferros used to 
boast that their ancestor did come over to 
England with William the Conqueror. There 
would seem no doubt, therefore, that the Semmes 
side of the family are French and English. On 
his mother's side, through her mother, the sub- 
ject of this sketch undoubtedly came from the 
O'Neal family and the Jenkins, who were Welsh 
Catholics. His grandfathers were both owners 
of large farms in Charles county. A singular 
proof of the birth-place of the first Joseph 
Semmes was related to a brother of Thomas J. 
Semmes by the Admiral. When he was at Cadiz in 
the "Sumter," a Spanish gentleman called upon 
him and claimed kin ; he stated that his father 
was a French soldier from Normandy, who was 
with the army that invaded Spain, and after the 
war married his mother, a Spanish woman ; he 
spelt his name as the family now do. At Cher- 
bourg, before the fight with the "Kearsarge," 



53° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



two Norman Frenchmen, named Semmes, called 
on board, and claimed kin with the Admiral. 

Joseph Semmes, the father of Raphael, was a 
farmer of Charles county, Md., and one of his 
brothers was killed at the battle of Long Island, 
during the Revolutionary war. Joseph left a 
large family of sons, one of whom emigrated to 
Georgia after the termination of the struggle for 
independence, and from him are descended all 
the Georgia members of the Semmes family; 
General Paul Semmes, who was killed at the 
battle of Sharpsburg, was one of that branch of 
the family. Thompson Semmes, another son of 
Joseph's, was lost at sea; he left two sons, 
Raphael, afterwards the world-renowned Con- 
federate Admiral and commander of the "Ala- 
bama," and Middleton, a lawyer of distinction 
in Cumberland county, Md., who was appointed 
to the Supreme Bench of Maryland, and died 
shortly after the close of the civil war. Dr. 
Benedict J. Semmes, another son of Joseph's, 
was a distinguished physician, and represented 
the first Maryland District during the adminis- 
tration of General Jackson. Felix Semmes, an- 
other son, was a merchant, of Washington, D. 
C, and died during the war. Raphael Semmes, 
the father of the subject of this sketch, was mar- 
ried in 1818, to Matilda Jenkins, a member of 
a prominent and wealthy family, of Charles 
county, Md., and died in 1846. The Jenkins 
family are of Irish descent, and came over to 
America with Lord Baltimore, settling in St. 
Mary's county, Md. Mrs. Raphael Semmes, 
the mother of Thomas J. Semmes, who is still 
alive, at the ripe age of seventy-eight, is a woman 
of remarkable strength of mind and wonderful 
variety of information. She was on terms of 
personal intimacy with every President of the 
United States, from President Monroe to Presi- 
dent Lincoln, and associated with all the dis- 
tinguished men in Washington during the greater 
part of half a century, including Calhoun, Clay, 
Webster, Berrien, Benton, Silas Wright, Dicker- 
son, Bayard, Horace Binney, Sargeant, B. 'Wat- 
kins Lee, Wirt, Pinckney, the Tazewells, Taney, 
Marshall, etc., etc. She was largely instrumental 
in the formation of the character of her large 



family of children, and to her they are indebted 
for much of their success in life. Virginia, the 
eldest daughter, married Major Rice W. Payne, 
of Warrenton, Va., an officer in the Confederate 
army. B. J. Semmes, the eldest son, was a mer- 
chant at Washington, D. C, and removed prior 
to the war to Memphis ; on the outbreak of hos- 
tilities he entered the Confederate army as a 
private, was wounded at Shiloh, appointed Major 
in the commissary department, and was Gen- 
erals Bragg and Johnston's chief depot commis- 
sary, at Dalton, Ga. He is now an extensive 
and prosperous merchant in Memphis. Thomas 
J. Semmes is the second son. Dr. Alexander J. 
Semmes, the third son, was a graduate of George- 
town (D. C.) College, studied medicine in Paris, 
and settled in New Orleans previous to the war, 
where he practised his profession. During the 
war he was Surgeon of the Eighth Louisiana Re- 
giment, and married Miss Berrien, the daughter 
of Senator Berrien ; she died without issue after 
the surrender, and he retired from his profession 
and became a Catholic priest ; he is now Pro- 
fessor of Belles Lettres, and Vice-President at 
Pio Nono College, Macon, Ga. Raphael 
Semmes, the fourth son, was lost at sea at the 
age of sixteen, while on a voyage from San 
Francisco to New York. P. Warfiekl Semmes, 
the youngest son, graduated at Georgetown Col- 
lege ; went to New Orleans, prior to the war, to 
study law ; entered the Confederate army as 
Lieutenant in the First Louisiana Regiment, serv- 
ing throughout, and rose to the grade of Captain. 
America Semmes, the second daughter, was the 
first wife of Major Rice W. Payne; she died 
during the war, leaving several young children. 
Clara Semmes, the third daughter, .like all the 
others, was educated at the Convent of the Visi- 
tation, Georgetown, D. C. ; she married, previ- 
ous to the war, Lieutenant Fitzgerald, of the 
United States navy, who joined the Confederate 
navy, and died in that service at Greenville, S. 
C, in 1863. Cora Semmes, the fourth daughter, 
was married prior to the civil war. to Lieutenant 
J. C. Ives, of the United States Engineer Corps. 
At the commencement of hostilities Lieutenant 
Ives, who had just completed the exploration of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



S3i 



the Gila river, went to Richmond, and was ap- 
pointed by President Davis Colonel on his per- 
sonal staff, served in that capacity during the war, 
and died shortly after its close in New York; he 
left three children : Edward Ives, who is at pres- 
ent a Lieutenant in the United States army; 
Frank Ives, who is practising medicine in New 
York city ; and Eugene Ives, a graduate of 
Georgetown (D. C.) College, now studying law 
at the Columbia Law School, New York. Ada 
Semmes, the youngest daughter of Raphael and 
Matilda Semmes, married, before the war, Rich- 
ard H. Clarke, a lawyer, of Washington, D. C. ; 
in consequence of his Southern proclivities he 
was compelled, during the war, to' remove from 
Washington to New York, where he now resides, 
and is practising his profession. 

Thomas J. Semmes received his early educa- 
tion at a primary school in Georgetown, D. C, 
conducted by an old Scotchman, named McLeod, 
who was a teacher of some distinction at that 
day. When eleven years of age he entered the 
Georgetown College, D. C, whence he graduated 
in 1842, when only seventeen and a half years of 
age. 

During the last three years of his term at the 
college he took the first honors for three suc- 
cessive years in his class, for which he was 
awarded a silver medal. He then studied law 
for one year in the office of Clement Cox, of 
Georgetown, D. O, and afterwards entered the 
law school of Harvard University, whence he 
graduated in January, 1845. The Harvard Law 
School was at that time presided over by Asso- 
ciate Justice Story, then of the United States 
Supreme Bench, and Professor Greenleaf, author 
of the well-known work on "Evidence." 
Among his contemporaries at Harvard were 
Rutherford B. Hayes, Henry C. Semple, of 
Montgomery, Ala., nephew of the then Presi- 
dent, John Tyler, and Burlingame, afterwards 
Minister to China. _- 

The Semmes family had always been Whigs, 
but about this time Thomas was led to peruse 
Judge Upshur's able review of Judge Story's 
work on the Constitution of the United States, 
and was so impressed with the force of his argu- 



ment that he became thenceforward a staunch 
States-Right Democrat. 

He was admitted to the bar in Washington, 
D. C, March, 1845, six months before he became 
twenty-one years of age, passing his examination 
before Chief-Justice Cranch and Associate-Jus- 
tices Morsell and Dunlop. He commenced the 
practice of his profession in Washington, in 
partnership with Walter D. Davidge, now a dis- 
tinguished lawyer, and grandson of Chief-Justice 
Dorsey, of Maryland, and the celebrated Dr. 
Davidge, of Baltimore. In January, 1850, he 
was married to Miss Myra E. Knox, daughter 
of William Knox, banker and planter, of Mont- 
gomery, Ala., and Anna O. Lewis, a member 
of the distinguished Lewis and Fairfax families, 
who were relatives of the Washingtons of Vir- 
ginia. In December, 1850, he removed to New 
Orleans, and the civil law of Louisiana being so 
different from the common law, he found him- 
self compelled to study for three months in order 
to qualify himself for admission to the bar of 
that State. He was subjected to an examination 
by a committee of the bar, appointed by the 
Supreme Court of the State, and was admitted 
to practise, February, 185 1. In 1853 he formed 
a partnership with Matthew Edwards, who had 
been one of his classmates at Harvard. 

In 1855 the excitement on the " Know- 
Nothing " question ran very high, and Mr. 
Semmes delivered an elaborate address at Ar- 
mory Hall in defence of the Catholics, and 
openly attacking the principles of the Know- 
Nothing party. This led to a rupture with Mr. 
Edwards, who was an ardent member of that 
party, and their partnership was in consequence 
dissolved. His vigorous utterances on this 
question brought him prominently into notice 
in political life, and he was at once elected a 
member of the Democratic State Central Com- 
mittee, and appointed its Secretary. As Secre- 
tary, he prepared an address to the Democratic 
party of the State, and carried on an energetic 
correspondence with the Central Committee of 
the Know-Nothing organization in regard to 
their method of conducting the election. At 
that election Mr. Semmes was a candidate for 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the House of Representatives of Louisiana from 
the First ward of New Orleans, and was elected 
by a large majority. During the election a bal- 
lot-box in the Seventh ward, containing some 
1,300 votes, was destroyed, but the count had 
proceeded sufficiently far to indicate a Dem- 
ocratic majority sufficient to elect the can- 
didate of that party for Sheriff. Joseph 
Hufty, the Know-Nothing candidate, was re- 
turned as elected, and his opponent, John M. 
Bell, brought action to contest his election. 
The jury decided in favor of Hufty by a majority 
vote, and when the Legislature met it became a 
question whether the Democratic party should 
submit to having the result of the election re- 
versed by the fraudulent destruction of the bal- 
lot-box. A caucus was held on the question of 
the removal of Hufty from office under the 
general power vested in the Legislature to re- 
move officers. A number of timid members of 
the caucus opposed such energetic action, and 
doubted the constitutional power of the Legisla- 
ture to remove the Sheriff. Mr. Semmes led 
the movement in favor of the power to remove 
both as a matter of policy and law, and finally 
induced the caucus to accept his views. He was 
thereupon appointed by the House of Repre- 
sentatives, in conjunction with Mr. Henry M. 
Hyams on the part of the Senate, to prepare an 
address for the removal of Hufty. This was the 
first instance that such power had ever been 
exercised in Louisiana, and the method of pro- 
ceeding was novel. The following is a copy of 
the address : 

An Address Removing from Office jfosepn Hufty, Sheriff 
of the Parish of Orleans : 

"Whereas, Freedom of suffrage and the 
inviolability of the ballot-box are the only basis 
of Republican government; and whereas, the 
great palladium of American liberty has been 
overthrown and trampled under foot at the 
late general election held in New Orleans on the 
5th of November, 1S55, whereby the free ex- 
pression of the popular will has been illegally 
suppressed by partisan commissioners of elec- 
tions, who arrogated to themselves the power to 
disfranchise legal voters, and by bands of law- 
less men who not only drove peaceful citizens 
from the poll by intimidation, violence and 



bloodshed, but, even after the polls had been 
closed, destroyed more than thirteen hundred 
legal votes which had been received during the 
election by the Commissioners, to the truth of 
which outrages the whole population of New 
Orleans bear witness ; and whereas, the late 
Governor of this State has urged the Legislature 
' to crush the evil at once, and before it has 
taken rout, and by the most pointed and ener- 
getic means ; ' and whereas, the Legislature is 
constituted by the organic law the grand in- 
quest of the State for the protection of the 
elective franchise from tumult, violence and 
other improper practice, and to vindicate the 
constitutional rights of the people rising above 
and not the subject matter of ordinary judicial 
investigation, but totally independent of, and 
not to be confounded with, individual claims to 
office; and whereas, the 97th Article of the 
Constitution declares that 'all civil efficers, 
except the Governor and the Judges of the Su- 
preme and inferior courts, shall be removable by 
an address of a majority of both houses, except 
those the removal of whom has been otherwise 
provided for by this Constitution ; ' and whereas, 
a Sheriff is a civil officer whose removal is not 
otherwise provided for by the Constitution ; and 
whereas, it has been indubitably established, to 
the satisfaction of this Legislature, that the con- 
stitutional rights of the citizens of New Orleans 
have been grossly violated in the late election 
for Sheriff of the parish of Orleans ; therefore be 
it Resolved, By the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives of the State of Louisiana in General 
Assembly convened, a majority of the members 
of both Houses concurring in this address, that 
Joseph Hufty, commissioned as Sheriff of the 
parish of Orleans, be and is hereby removed 
from the office of Sheriff of the parish of Orleans. 
Be it further Resolved, That this address be pre- 
sented to the Governor of this State in compli- 
ance with the Constitution thereof, and that the 
same take effect from and after its passage. 
(Signed) " William W. Pugh, 

" Speaker of the House of Represenlalives. 
" C. H. MONTON, 
"Lieutenant-Governor and President of the Sei ate. 
" Approved February 21st, 1856. 

(Signed) " Robert C, Wickliffe, 

"Governor of the State of Louisiana." 

As there was violent agitation in New Orleans 
on this question, it was deemed prudent to have 
the address presented and advocated by Demo- 
cratic members from the country districts. 
When the debate came on, however, it was dis- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



533 



covered that the persons selected to conduct the 
case on the Democratic side were overmatched, 
and about three o'clock in the day many mem- 
bers urged Mr. Semmes to speak in vindication 
of the address. Unexpected as was this request, 
and quite unprepared as he was for so important 
a duty, he cheerfully accepted the situation, and 
made one of the most powerful and convincing 
arguments of his life. The address was carried, 
and its constitutionality was subsequently vindi- 
cated by the decision of the Supreme Court in 
the case. From that time forward Mr. Semmes 
became the leader of the Democratic party in 
the Louisiana Legislature. He served in the 
Legislature for the session of 1856-57, and in 
1858 was appointed by President Buchanan 
United States District-Attorney for Louisiana. 
In the course of his official duties he prosecuted 
General Walker for unlawful expeditions against 
Nicaragua. The trial was held in the Circuit 
Court of the United States, presided over by 
Associate-Justice John A. Campbell. Although 
the evidence was conclusive, and the Judge's 
charge strongly in favor of conviction, the jury 
disagreed, and Mr. Semmes thereupon entered a 
nolle prosequi without consultation with Judge 
Campbell. 

Subsequently, at a personal interview with 
President Buchanan in Washington in 1S59, the 
President called him to account for having en- 
tered a nolle prosequi without consultation with 
the presiding Judge, and Mr. Semmes replied 
that when the jury would not convict on such 
evidence as had been adduced at the trial, he 
had abandoned all expectation of a different 
result in the event of another trial, and he 
thought it good policy not to persecute the 
prisoner by useless prosecution. In 1S59, while 
still United States District-Attorney, he was 
nominated by the Democratic Convention for 
Attorney-General of Louisiana. He resigned 
the District-Attorneyship in July, 1859, and was 
elected Attorney-General by 10,000 majority in 
the fall of that year, and entered on the duties 
of his office in January, i860. In January, 1861, 
he was elected, after very vigorous opposition, a 
member of the Convention which passed the 



Ordinance of Secession, January 26th, 1S61, 
for which he voted. 

In September, 1861, as Attorney-General of 
Louisiana, he was called by President Davis to 
Montgomery, to consult as to the suspension of 
specie payment by the State Banks. So long as 
the State Banks continued specie payments it 
would materially interfere with the circulation 
of the Confederate currency ; but suspension of 
specie payment under the State law would oper- 
ate as a forfeiture of the charters of the banks. 
Mr. Semmes, under these circumstances, agreed 
not to prosecute the banks should they suspend 
specie payment, but to report the matter to the 
Legislature for instructions. The banks accord- 
ingly suspended in September, 1861, and the 
Legislature passed the matter over in silence. 
In November, 1S61, it became necessary to elect 
two Senators to the Confederate Senate, organ- 
ized under the new Constitution, and Hon. T. 
J. Semmes and General Edward H. Sparrow 
were chosen Senators from Louisiana. Mr. 
Semmes took his seat in the ConfederateJSenate 
at- Richmond, Va., February, 1862, and in the 
drawing for terms he drew that for four years, 
while General Sparrow drew that for six years. 
An interesting circumstance, as illustrating the 
peculiar relations of one part of the country to 
another at that memorable period, took place in 
Mr. Semmes' family. Some years previous to 
the war Mrs. Semmes, in paying a visit to the 
North, had occasion to visit a convent in Bos- 
ton, Mass., where a relation of Mr. Semmes was 
one of the sisters. A bright and intelligent 
little girl, an inmate of the institution, ran up 
to Mrs. Semmes on her entrance, calling her 
"Mamma!" The lady was so touched and 
interested by the artless manner of the little or- 
phan that the sisters urged her, as she had at 
that time no children of her own, to adopt the 
child. The matter being referred to Mr. 
Semmes, he at first demurred, but a second visit 
having strengthened the mutual affection between 
the lady and the child, it was finally decided 
that Mr. Semmes should adopt her, and pay for 
her education and care by the sisters until she 
could be conveniently sent to her new home. 



534 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Some time after the commencement of the war 
this child, reared in the very heart of Yankee- 
dom, yet adopted and educated by a prominent 
"rebel," was safely sent through the lines to 
the home of her adopted parents in the Con- 
federacy. 

In the Confederate Senate Mr. Semmes was 
appointed a member of the. Finance Committee 
in conjunction with Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, of 
Virginia, and Hon. Robert Barnewell, of South 
Carolina ; and a member of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of which Hon. B. H. Hill was Chairman. 
He was also Chairman of the joint Committee 
on the Flag and Seal of the Confederate States. 
He drafted under the direction of Hon. R. M. 
T. Hunter the " Tax in kind " bill, which prac- 
tically supported the Confederacy during the 
last two years of the war. As member of the 
Finance Committee he advocated the scaling 
and calling in of the outstanding Confederate 
currency, on the ground that the purchasing 
power of the hew currency to be issued in ex- 
change would be greater than the total amount 
of the outstanding currency in its then depre- 
ciated condition. This measure was afterwards 
carried. He made a report from the Judiciary 
Committee adverse to martial law. He made 
a report from the Flag and Seal Committee, ad- 
vocating the adoption of that report in a speech 
the substance of which was subsequently pub- 
lished in the London Index, a paper which had 
been established in the interests of the Confed- 
erate States, in London. The following were 
the proceedings in the Senate : 

"THE CONFEDERATE SEAL. 

"In the Senate, on the 27th of April, 1S64, 
the House resolutions for establishing a seal 
being before that body, Mr. Semmes moved to 
strike out the words 'seal of," and substitute 
for the words 'Deo duce vincemus' the legend 
' Deo vindice majores cemulamur,' and made 
thereon the following remarks : 

"Mr. President: I am instructed by the 
Committee to move to strike out the words 
'dure vincemus' in the motto and insert in lieu 
thereof the words 'vindice majores aamulamur' 



— 'under the guidance and protection of God 
we endeavor to equal, and even to excel, our 
ancestors.' Before discussing the proposed 
change in the motto, I will submit to the Senate 
a few remarks as to the device on the seal. 

" The Committee have been greatly exercised 
on this subject, and it has been extremely diffi- 
cult to come to any satisfactory conclusion. 
This is a difficulty, however, incident to the 
subject, and all that we have to do is to avoid 
what Visconti calls 'an absurdity in bronze.' 

"The equestrian statue of Washington has 
been selected in deference to the current of 
popular sentiment. The equestrian figure im- 
pressed on our seal will be regarded by those 
skilled in glyptics as to a certain extent indica- 
tive of our origin. It is a most remarkable fact, 
that an equestrian figure constituted the seal of 
Great Britain from the time of Edward the Con- 
fessor down to the reign of George III., except 
during the short interval of the Protectorate of 
Cromwell, when the trial of the King was sub- 
stituted for the man on horseback. Even Crom- 
well retained the equestrian figure on the seal 
of Scotland, but he characteristically mounted 
himself on the horse. In the reign of William 
and Mary, the seal bore the impress of the king 
and queen both mounted on horseback. 

"Washington has been selected as the emblem 
for our shield, as a type of our ancestors — in his 
character of princeps majorum. In addition to 
this, the equestrian figure is consecrated in the 
hearts of our people by the local circumstance 
that, on the gloomy and stormy 22d of February, 
1S62, our Permanent Government was set in 
motion by the inauguration of President Davis 
under the shadow of the statue of Washington. 

"The Committee are dissatisfied with the 
motto on the seal as proposed by the House 
resolution. The motto proposed is as follows: 
'Deo Duce Vincemus' — ' Under the leadership 
of God we will conquer.' 

"The word 'Duce' is too pagan in its signifi- 
cation, and is degrading to God because it re- 
duces him to the leader of an army; for scarcely « 
does the word 'duce' escape the lips before the 
imagination suggests 'exercitus,' an army for a 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



535 



leader to command. It degrades the Christian 
God to the level of pagan gods, goddesses, and 
heroes, as is manifest from the following quota- 
tion, 'Nil desperandum Tenero duce." This 
word 'duce ' is particularly objectionable because 
of its connection with the word 'vincemus' — 
'we will conquer.' This connection makes God 
the leader of a physical army, by means of which 
we will conquer, not must conquer. If God be 
our leader we must conquer, or he would not be 
the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, 
nor the God of the Christian. This very doubt 
implied in the word 'vincemus' so qualifies the 
omnipotence of the God who is to be our 
'leader,' that it imparts a degrading significa- 
tion to the word 'duce' in its relation to the 
attributes of the Deity. 

"The word 'vincemus' is equally objection- 
able because it implies that the war is to be our 
normal state; besides, it is in the future tense — 
' we will conquer. ' The future is always uncer- 
tain, and therefore it implies doubt. What be- 
comes of our motto when we shall have con- 
quered ? The future becomes an accomplished 
fact, and our motto thus loses its significance. 
In addition to this, there are only two languages 
in which the words will and shall are to be found 
— the English and the German — and in. those 
they are used to qualify a positive condition of 
the mind and render it uncertain ; they are re- 
pugnant to repose, quiet, absolute and positive 
existence. 

"As to the motto proposed by us, we concur 
with the House in accepting the word 'Deo' — 
God. We do so in conformity to the expressed 
wishes of the framers of our Constitution, and 
the sentiments of the people, and of the army. 

" The Preamble of the Provisional Constitu- 
tion declares that ' We, the deputies of the sov- 
ereign and independent States of South Carolina, 
etc., invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty 
God, do ordain, etc' In this respect both our 
Constitutions have deviated in the most em- 
phatic manner from the spirit that presided 
over the construction of the Constitution of the 
United States, which is silent on the subject of 
the Deity. 



"Having discarded the word 'duce,' the 
Committee endeavored to select in lieu of it a 
word more in consonance with the attributes 
of the Deity, and therefore more imposing and 
significant. They think success has crowned 
their efforts in the selection of the word ' Vin- 
dex,' which signifies an asserter, a defender, 
protector, deliverer, liberator, a mediator, and 
a ruler or guardian, as may be seen from the fol- 
lowing examples : ist. A defender: 'Habet sane 
populus tabellam quasi vindicem libertatis' — 
Livy. The people hold a bond, the defender, 
as it were, of their liberty. 2d. A protector: 
'Vindicem periculi Curium res suppeditat' — ■ 
Livy. The circumstances suggest or afford 
Curius as a protector against danger. 3d. A 
mediator: 'Nee Deus intersit nisi dignus vindice 
nodus incident ' — Horace, Ars Poetica. Let not 
God intervene, unless the catastrophe be worthy 
of such a mediator or interposer. 4th. Ruler or 
Guardian : ' Vindicem eum regni reliquit ' — 
Justin's History. He left 'him ruler or guardian 
of the kingdom. 

"Vindex also means an avenger or punisher. 
ist. 'Furias vindices facinorum' — Cicero. The 
furies, the avengers of crime. 2. 'Me vindicem 
conjurationis oderunt ' — Cicero. They hate me, 
the punisher of their conspiracy. 

"No word appeared more grand, more ex- 
pressive or significant than this. Under God 
as the asserter of our rights, the defender of our 
liberties, our protector against danger, our me- 
diator, our ruler and guardian, and, as the 
avenger of our wrongs and the punisher of our 
crimes, we endeavor to equal or even excel our 
ancestors. What word can be suggested of 
more power, and so replete with sentiments and 
thoughts consonant with our idea of the omnip- 
otence and justice of God ? 

"At this point the Committee hesitated 
whether it were necessary to add anything fur- 
ther to the motto 'Deo vindice.' These words 
alone were sufficient and impressive, and in the 
spirit of the lapidary style of composition were 
elliptical and left much to the play of the imagi- 
nation. Reflection, however, induced us to add 
the words 'majores semulamur,' because without 



53(5 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



them there would be nothing in the motto refer- 
ring to the equestrian figure of Washington. It 
was thought best to insert something elucidative 
or adoptive of the idea intended to be conveyed 
by that figure. Having determined on this 
point, the Committee submit to the judgment 
of the Senate the words 'majores aemulamur,' 
as best adapted to express the ideas of ' our an- 
cestors. ' ' Patres ' was first suggested, but 
abandoned because ' majores ' signifies ancestors 
absolutely, and is also more suggestive than 
'patres.' The latter is a term applied to our 
immediate progenitors who may be alive, where- 
as ' majores ' conveys the idea of a more remote 
generation that has passed away. 

" This distinction is well marked in the follow- 
ing quotation from Cicero against Caecilius : 
' Patres, majoresque nostri ' — Our fathers and 
forefathers. 

" That being disposed of, the question arose as 
to the proper signification of the word ' aemu- 
lamur.' Honorable emulation is the primary 
signification of the word ; in its secondary 
sense it is true it includes the idea of improper 
rivalry, or jealousy. But it is used in its primary 
and honorable sense by the most approved au- 
thors, as may be seen from the. following ex- 
amples : rst. ' Quoniam aemulari non licet nunc 
invides' (Plautus, The Boastful Soldier) — Since 
you cannot equal, you now envy him. 2d. 
'Omnes ejus instituta laudare facilius possunt 
quam aemulari' (Cicero) — It is easier to praise than 
to equal his precepts. 3d. ' Pindarum quii-quis 
studet remulari, etc. ( Horace, Odes) — Whoever 
endeavors to equal Pindarus is sure to fall. 4th. 
' Virtutes majorum aemulari ' (Tacitus, Life of 
Agricola) — To equal, to come up to the virtues 
of our ancestors. This last example is an exact 
application of the word in the manner proposed 
by the committee. 

"The secondary and improper sense of the 
word aemulari is excluded in the proposed motto 
by the relation it bears to ' Deo vindice.' This 
relation excludes the idea of envy or jealousy, 
because God, as the asserter of what is right, 
justifies the emulation, and as a punisher of what 
is wrong, checks the excess, in case the emula- 



tion runs into improper envy or jealousy. In 
adopting the equestrian figure of Washington, 
the Committee desire distinctly to disavow any 
recognition of the embodiment of the idea of 
the ' Cavalier.' We have no admiration for the 
character of the 'Cavalier' of 1640, any more 
than for that of his opponent, the Puritan. We 
turn with disgust from the violent and licentious 
Cavalier, and we abhor the acerb, morose and 
fanatic Puritan, of whom Oliver Cromwell was 
the type. In speaking of Cromwell and his 
character Guizot says : ' That he possessed the 
faculty of lying at need with an inexhaustible 
and unhesitating hardihood, which struck even 
his enemies with surprise and embarrassment.' 
This characteristic seems to have been trans- 
mitted to the descendants of the Pilgrims who 
settled in Massachusetts Bay to enjoy the liberty 
of persecution. If the Cavalier is to carry us 
back to days earlier than the American revolu- 
tion, I prefer to be transported in imagination 
to the field of Runnymede, when the Barons 
extorted Magna-Charta from the unwilling John. 
But I discard all reference to the Cavalier of old, 
because it implies a division of society into two 
orders, an idea inconsistent with Confederate 
institutions. 

"The Committee have discharged their duty 
and submit the result to the consideration of the 
Senate. 

" It is true they have labored more than a 
year, and critics may say ' parturiunt montes, 
nascitur ridiculus mus.' 

" yEsthetical critics, who claim to be versed 
in glyptics, have, however, failed to suggest any- 
thing better. If the proposition be not satisfac- 
tory to the Senate, it is hoped the matter will be 
intrusted to other and more learned hands. 

" Mr. Semmes' amendment to strike out the 
words ' seal of was agreed to. Mr. Davis moved 
to amend the original text by striking out the 
word 'vincemus;' agreed to. 

"Mr. Semmes' motion to strike out 'duce' 
and insert 'vindice majores aemulamur,' was re- 
jected. 

" Mr. Semmes then moved to amend by sub- 
stituting 'vindice ' for 'duce;' agreed to. 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



537 



" The resolution, as amended, was then read 
a third time, passed, and sent to the House. 

" The seal as adopted by the Senate will be 
as follows : 

"A device representing an equestrian portrait 
of Washington (after the statue which surmounts 
his monument in the Capitol Square at Rich- 
mond), surrounded with a wreath, composed of 
the principal agricultural products of the Con- 
federacy, and having around its margin the 
words, 'Confederate States of America, 22 Feb- 
ruary, 1862,' with the following motto: 'Deo 
vindice.' " 

In March, 1S65, General Lee having commu- 
nicated to the Confederate Congress that it would 
be impossible for him to hold Richmond any 
longer, Mr. Semmes, with his wife, left that city 
en route for Montgomery, Ala. , the residence of 
his father-in-law. They travelled through North 
Carolina and a part of Georgia in a wagon, and 
when they arrived at Augusta, Ga., heard of the 
surrender of General Lee. From thence they 
started by rail for Atlanta, but finding the road 
in ruins, proceeded to La Grange, Ga., the home 
of Senator B. H. Hill. Upon their arrival at 
his house they found assembled there Senators 
C. C. Clay and Wigfall, and Mr. Mallory, the 
Secretary of the Confederate Navy, besides Mr. 
Hill himself. Mr. Semmes foreseeing that if 
they all remained there some Federal lieutenant 
with a few soldiers, passing through the town, 
might charge them with conspiring treason, and 
arrest them, borrowed a buggy, and rode over 
to Alabama. Here he stopped at a place be- 
longing to his father-in-law, in the Talladega 
region. A few days afterwards he heard from 
Senator Wigfall, who was tramping through the 
country on foot disguised, that Mr. B. H. Hill 
had been arrested, as he had foreseen. Shortly 
afterwards Mr. Semmes went to Montgomery, 
Ala., and there remained until October, 1865. 
Previous to that time he wrote to General Canby, 
.asking to be allowed to return to New Orleans 
to resume the practice of his profession, the 
General having issued an order that none of the 
Confederates, situated as Mr. Semmes was, 



should be permitted to return without permis- 
sion from the military authorities. He had 
written to General Canby because, when a Lieu- 
tenant in the army, the General had been neigh- 
bor of Mr. Semmes' mother in Georgetown, 
D. C.j and he was well acquainted with the 
family. Receiving no reply, however, to this 
application, he took the cars to Washington, 
and in a five minutes' interview with President 
Johnson, was granted a pardon. The President 
asked him what he had done, to which he re- 
plied — "all that a man could possibly do, by 
deeds and words, to promote the Confederate 
cause ; but, the cause having been defeated, he 
desired to resume in peace the practice of his 
profession, in order to support his family." The 
President, smiling, said, " Well, go to work! " 
He immediately returned with his wife to New 
Orleans, having borrowed one hundred dollars 
for the purpose, and not being possessed of an- 
other cent in the world, as all his property had 
been confiscated. He recommenced the prac- 
tice of law in New Orleans in partnership with 
Mr. Robert Mott, with whom he was associated 
until 1875. Great prosperity has since rewarded 
his exertions, and he has gradually risen to the 
head of the bar in Louisiana, which proud posi- 
tion he shares with Judge John A. Campbell. 
lie acquired particular distinction in defending 
George M. Wickliffe, in 1869, charged with 
malversation in office, and the stealing of in- 
terest coupons surrendered to him as Auditor, 
and paid by the State. Wickliffe was acquitted 
before the Criminal Court, but subsequently im- 
peached at the instance of Governor Warmoth, 
and was again defended, on his trial before the 
Louisiana Senate, by Mr. Semmes. The charges 
against him were mainly for auditing fictitious 
accounts, and for receiving compensation from 
persons presenting accounts against the State. 
When the trial had proceeded sufficiently far to 
convince Mr. Semmes that there was no hope of 
Wickliffe's acquittal, he advised him, pending 
his trial, to resign his office. The Senate, how- 
ever, refused to accept his resignation, and pro- 
nounced judgment against him. Two murder 
trials, in which he was engaged, also added 



533 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



greatly to his rapidly increasing reputation — the 
case of Mr. Cammack, charged with the murder 
of Nixon, who was shot at the door of the Bos- 
ton Club, in Carondelet Street, New Orleans ; 
and that of the two Boyds, who, going into a 
bank in New Orleans in business hours, de- 
manded of one of the officers, while performing 
his duties, that he should sign a written retrac- 
tion of certain charges, and, on his refusal to do 
so, shot him on the spot. They were acquitted 
on an ingenious theory of self-defence. In the 
fall of 1S72 Mr. Semmes argued before Judge 
Durell some important questions, involving the 
legality of the State elections. In 1875 he suc- 
cessfully prevented the bond-holders of the State 
from interfering with the funding scheme pro- 
vided for by the Legislature. The original bond- 
holders had applied to the United States Circuit 
Court for a mandatory injunction to compel the 
officers of the State to levy and collect the taxes 
authorized by the various acts passed previous to 
1S74, for the payment of the interest on their 
bond. Mr. Semmes was engaged with Judge 
William H. Hunt, now of the Court of Claims, 
Washington, on behalf of the State, to oppose 
this application, and succeeded in defeating it, 
thereby securing the funding system, which had 
been inaugurated by the Legislature and the 
Constitutional Amendments of 1874. 

He was prominently engaged in the great 
litigation between the present- City Gas Com- 
pany and the New Orleans Gas-Light Company, 
which lasted during 1875 and 1876. 

In 1879 he was engaged in the Louisiana Lot- 
tery case. The Louisiana Legislature of 1879 
repealed the charter of the Lottery Company, 
making it a criminal offence to sell lottery 
tickets. Mr. Semmes, with Judge John A. 
Campbell, obtained an injunction against the 
State officers to prevent them from executing the 
penal part of the repealing law against the com- 
pany, on the ground that the Legislature had no 
power to repeal the charter and punish the ven- 
dors of tickets as criminals. 

In 1S73 Mr. Semmes was appointed Professor 
of Civil Law in the University of Louisiana, 
and occupied that chair until 1879, when he re- 



signed, in consequence of the pressure of other 
duties. In the introductory lecture delivered by 
him at the opening of the institution, he gave 
an epitome of the history and sources of the 
laws of Louisiana, from which we make the fol- 
lowing extracts : 

" In Louisiana the civil law prevails, and it is 
the only State in the Federal Union, carved out 
of the vast territories acquired by the United 
States from France, Spain and Mexico, in which 
the civil law has been retained as the basis of 
jurisprudence. The common law modified by 
statute dominates all our sister States. The in- 
timate relations and intercourse between the 
people of Louisiana and the citizens of other 
States have given rise in our courts, in conse- 
quence of the dissimilarity of the two systems of 
law, to more numerous and intricate questions 
of conflict of laws than in the courts of any 
other State. Happily for us, many of these 
questions were considered and adjudicated while 
Chief-Justice Martin was, by his ability and 
learning, the ornament of our supreme judicial 
tribunal. You will perceive in Story's elaborate 
work on the ' Conflict of Laws ' numerous and 
copious references to the decisions of the Loui- 
siana courts. The conflict of laws is a subject 
daily considered by the legal practitioner in 
Louisiana, and I commend it to your careful 
study as an essential branch of the law, and 
necessary to fit you for the intelligent perform- 
ance of your professional duties. Louisiana was 
settled by the French in 1699, and was subject 
to the dominion of France until August, 1769, 
when it was taken possession of by O'Reilly for 
Spain under a secret • treaty concluded in No- 
vember, 1762, but not made public until the 
23d of April, 1764. About three months after 
taking possession, O'Reilly published in the 
French language extracts from the whole body 
of the Spanish law, with references to the books 
in which they are contained, purporting to be 
intended for elementary instruction to the in- 
habitants of the province. This publication, 
followed by an uninterrupted observance of the 
Spanish law, was received as an introduction 
into Louisiana of the Spanish Code in all its 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



539 



parts. . . . The transfer from France to Spain 
did not change the system of law governing the 
territory ; for the civil law, as a system, then was 
and now is the law of both nations. Spain, so 
far as possession affected our laws, remained in 
possession until 1S03, when Louisiana was trans- 
ferred to the United States. It is true the ter- 
ritory was acquired from France during the 
administration of Mr. Jefferson, for, by the 
treaty of Ildefonso, in the year 1800, Spain had 
retroceded Louisiana to France, but the actual 
possession of France lasted only from the 30th 
of November to the 20th of December, 1803. 
During this brief interval no material change in 
the law was made. The French merely re-estab- 
lished the Black Code of Louis XV., prescribing 
rules for the government of slaves, and substi- 
tuted a Mayor and Council, in the place of the 
Cabildo, for the administration of the affairs of 
the city of New Orleans. Therefore, so far as 
our law is concerned, it may be said, it was 
French from 1699 to 1769, and Spanish from 
1769 to 1S03. But as French and Spanish law 
both descend from the same parent source, the 
changes made during Spanish rule, so far as 
private rights are concerned, were not radical, 
but modifications of the system founded by the 
French. The material changes consisted in the 
substitution of the Spanish for the French lan- 
guage in all legal proceedings, and the introduc- 
tion of Spanish laws respecting public order, and 
the disposition of the national domain. It is 
thus perceived that, at the time Louisiana came 
into possession of the United States, her law was 
a system established by the French and modified 
by the Spaniards, but derived from the civil law 
which was common to both people. By the 
treaty of Paris the inhabitants of Louisiana be- 
came citizens of the United States, and were 
guaranteed the enjoyment of their liberty, prop- 
erty and religion. Congress, in anticipation 
of the transfer, on the 31st of October, 1803, 
provided for the temporary government of the 
territory by a statute, vesting all the military, 
civil and judicial powers, exercised by the offi- 
cers of the existing government, in such person 
or persons as the President might appoint, to be 



exercised in such manner as he might direct. 
By act of Congress, approved 26th of March, 
1804, a territorial government was organized 
under the name of the 'Territory of Orleans.' 
The territory described in that act embraced all 
the territory of the present State of Louisiana, 
and separated it from the residue of the Louisi- 
ana cession, as described in the treaty of Paris. 
For Louisiana, as acquired from France, em- 
braced all the country from the Gulf of Mexico 
to the forty-ninth parallel of latitude, and from 
the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. But 
although the terms of the territorial act of 1804 
embraced the territory now comprised within the 
limits of the State of Louisiana, that part of the 
State, commor.ly called the Florida Parishes, 
was at that time actually in the possession of 
Spain, and was held by her until the year 1810. 
The territorial act of 1804 vested the legislative 
power in a Governor to be appointed by the 
President, and thirteen persons who were to be 
appointed annually by the President. But on 
the 2d of March, 1805, Congress authorized the 
President to establish in Louisiana a government 
similar to that existing in the ' Mississippi Ter- 
ritory,' which had been created by adopting 
the ordinance of 1787 relative to territory north- 
west of the Ohio river, excluding that portion 
of the ordinance regulating successions, and the 
last article prohibiting slavery. It is thus per- 
ceived that the celebrated ordinance of 17S7 
regulated the form of government existing in 
Louisiana until she was admitted into the Union 
as an independent State. The second article of 
the ordinance of 1787 guaranteed among other 
fundamental rights the benefit of the writ of 
habeas corpus, the right of trial by jury, and 
judicial proceedings according to the course of 
the common law. The first important and 
radical change made by the new government in 
the laws of the territory was the necessary result 
of the change of rulers, and of the guarantees 
contained in the ordinance of 1787. The 
criminal law and proceedings of the Latia races 
in Europe, whose absolute governments ignored 
the guarantees contained in our Federal Consti- 
tution, were repugnant to the Anglo-Saxon 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ideas of individual liberty and constitutional 
limitation of governmental power which pre- 
dominated in the American mind. The terri- 
torial statute of the 4th of May, 1S05, defined 
what acts should constitute crimes and offences, 
and provided for the trial and punishment of 
offenders. In so doing, the language and terms 
of the common law of England were used, and 
the following provision was embodied in the act, 
viz. : 'All the crimes, offences and misdemean- 
ors, herein before mentioned, shall be taken, 
intended and construed according to and in 
conformity with the common law of England, 
and the forms of indictment (divested, however, 
of unnecessary prolixity), the method of trial, 
the rules of evidence, and all other proceedings 
whatsoever, in the prosecution of said crimes, 
offences and misdemeanors, changing what 
ought to be changed, shall be (except by this 
act otherwise provided for) according to said 
common law.' This section of the act of 1805 
has never been repealed ; even in the Revised 
Statutes of 1870, it is expressly excepted in the 
general repealing clause contained in the last 
section of those statutes. The result of this en- 
actment was an entire displacement of the exist- 
ing criminal law cf the territory, and the substi- 
tution of the provisions of the act in its stead. 
Hence, no act of man is criminal in Louisiana 
unless a statute of the State can be produced 
stamping it. as a crime or offence. There is no 
such thing in Louisiana as a common law of- 
fence — all offences are created by statute. The 
common law is resorted to for the purpose of 
interpretation and construction of the terms of 
the statutes creating offences, but criminality 
cannot be predicated of an act which the Legisla- 
ture has not, in express terms, denounced as a 
crime or offence. An additional result of this 
statute of 1805 is, that the common law of Eng 
land, as construed and interpreted in 1805, is 
the standard by which we are governed ; hence, 
no change or modifications of the English laws 
affect our criminal jurisprudence in Louisiana, 
unless adopted by statute ; and the English de- 
1 isions, and the opinions of English commenta- 
tors since 1S05, in opposition to the decisions 



and standard works prior to that period, are not 
authoritative expositions of our criminal law. 
The next important legislati-ve measure was a 
codification of the civil law of the territory. 
Prior to this codification, the laws were in the 
Spanish language, and the fact that the vast 
majority of the people were of French descent 
and Americans rendered it necessary that the 
new compilation should be published in English 
and French. It is generally supposed that the 
Civil Code of Louisiana is but a re-enactment of 
the Napoleon Code ; but such is not the fact. 
It is true the French Code preceded our Code 
of 1808 by five years, and a projet of it may 
have suggested to our legislators the idea of cod- 
ification ; but at the time of the preparation of 
the Louisiana Code of 1808 the Napoleon Code, 
as adopted, had not reached the territory. In 
June, 1806, the Legislature of the territory ap- 
pointed two lawyers of eminence — James Brown 
and Moreau Lislet — to prepare a Civil Code, 
with express instructions to make the Civil Law, 
by which the territory was then governed, the 
ground work of the Code. On the 31st of 
March, 1808, the Code was adopted by the 
Territorial Legislature, and all the ancient laws 
inconsistent with it were repealed. The effect 
of this was, that the Spanish laws remained in 
force, to the extent to which they were not in 
conflict with the Code of 1S08, and they were 
quoted and acted on as authoritative until 1S28. 
On the 28th of March, 1828, the Legislature 
repealed all the civil laws of the State which 
were in force prior to the Code of 1825, except 
so much of the title tenth of the Code of 1808 
as treated of the dissolution of corporations. 
The State of Louisiana was admitted into the 
Federal Union under the dominion of the Code 
of 1S08, and the Spanish laws not in conflict 
with that Code. On the 20th of February, 
181 1, Congress passed an act to enable the peo- 
ple of the ' Territory of Orleans ' to form a con- 
stitution and State government, and for the 
admission of said State into the Union on an 
equal footing with the original States. The 
people in convention assembled, having framed 
a constitution and adopted the name of Louisi- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



54i 



ana as the title of the new State, Congress on 
the 8th of April, 1812, declared Louisiana to be 
one of the United States of America, and ad- 
mitted into the Union on an equal footing with 
the original States in all respects whatever. 
Provided that it should be taken as a condition 
upon which the said State is incorporated into 
the Union, that the river Mississippi and the 
navigable rivers and waters leading into the 
same, and into the Gulf of Mexico, shall be 
common highways, and forever free as well to 
the inhabitants of said State as to the inhabitants 
of other States and the territories of the United 
States, without any tax, duty, impost or toll 
therefor imposed by the said State, and that the 
above condition, and also all the other condi- 
tions and terms contained in the third section 
of the act of 181 1, shall be taken and deemed 
as fundamental conditions and terms upon which 
the said State is incorporated into the Union. 
It was further declared that all the laws of the 
United States not locally inapplicable were by 
that act extended to the said State. At the 
same time the State was organized into one Fed- 
eral judicial district, and the appointment of a 
District Judge of the United States, with Circuit 
Court powers, was provided for. While on this 
subject of judicial districts, I may as well men- 
tion that, on the 29th of July, 1850, by act of 
Congress, this State was divided into two judi- 
cial districts called the Eastern and Western dis- 
tricts, but since the war these two have been 
merged into one, styled the ' District of Loui- 
siana.' . . . Our lawyers, accustomed to the 
civil law practice, were much embarrassed as to 
the method of conducting civil causes in the 
courts of the United States. The distinction 
between 'law and equity' is unknown in Loui- 
, siana practice; the courts adjudicate all civil 
causes without reference to such distinction, 
which is peculiar to countries in which the com- 
mon law prevails. In Louisiana, where the dis- 
tinction derived from the common law system 
between writ of error and appeal is ignored, the 
evidence in any civil case of which the court of 
final resort has jurisdiction is, at the request of 
either party, reduced to writing ; the appellate 



court reviews the law and the fact without re- 
gard to the circumstance whether or not the 
case was tried by a jury in the court below. 
All the evidence is transmitted to the appellate 
court, which disposes of the case on its merits, 
even though no bills of exception are taken by 
either party, to the judgment of the court below 
on questions of law. All that is necessary to 
bring into activity the revisory power of our 
Supreme Court is the presentation of all the 
evidence on which the judge below decided the 
case; on that evidence the court will proceed to 
adjudicate de novo both the law and fact involved 
in the cause. ... It is absolute^ necessary for 
a Louisiana lawyer, who desires to practise in 
the Federal courts, to study the common law in 
order to ascertain what is a common law case, 
and what is a case in equity. When he finds 
out that his case is one in equity, he must be- 
come familiar with chancery practice in order to 
prosecute it with success. If his case is a com- 
mon law case, he can adopt the Louisiana prac- 
tice of pleading, but he must be careful in the 
trial of the case to resort to the common law 
method of proceeding." 

At the graduation exercises of the Law De- 
partment of the University of Louisiana held at 
Grunewald Hall, New Orleans, April 27th, 1874, 
Mr. Semmes delivered an eloquent and classical 
address on " Religion as the Basis of Law," from 
which we extract the following : 

"Themis is truly a jealous mistress; she de- 
mands constant and undivided love ; her favors 
are > withheld from those who, led astray by 
pleasure or' the fascination of other attractions, 
grow cold in worship at her shrine. Action 
makes the orator, as we are informed by Demos- 
thenes, but study makes the lawyer. Knowl- 
edge of all kinds is required in the extended 
practice of the successful advocate, and, there- 
fore, no branch of science is to be neglected. 
Philosophy, physics, metaphysics, history, po- 
litical economy — all in their turn, and to a greater 
or less degree, are called into the service of the 
law in adjusting the rights of litigants in courts 
of justice. But in the culture of your minds do 
not become devotees at the shrine of that mod- 



542 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



ern system of material philosophy which ex- 
cludes the supernatural, and by which man is 
converted into a mere reasoning machine, with- 
out hope, without satisfaction of his aspirations, 
without an object to gratify the irrepressible 
yearnings of the soul, and, therefore, without 
happiness. The most melancholy instance of a 
purely material culture is to be found in the au- 
tobiography of John Stuart Mill, who began 
Greek at three years old, read Plato at seven, 
studied logic at twelve, went through a complete 
course of political economy at thirteen, including 
the most intricate points of the theory of cur- 
rency ; at eighteen became a constant writer for 
the Westminster Review, and at nineteen edited 
Benthani 's Theory of Evidence. He was brought 
up by his father to believe that Christianity was 
false, and that even as regards natural religion 
there was no ground for faith ; for he laments 
' that those who reject revelation very generally 
take refuge in an optimistic Deism, a worship of 
the order of nature, and the supposed course of 
Providence, at least (as he says) as full of con- 
tradictions and perverting to the moral senti- 
ments as any of the forms of Christianity if only 
it is as completely analyzed.' We rise from the 
perusal of this drear autobiography with sad 
compassion for him who tells us that Coleridge 
described his mental condition in two lines: 

" 'Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, 
And hope without an object cannot live.' 

" The tendency of the age is to materialism ; 
the intellect of the age is mechanical; the meta- 
physical and moral sciences are falling into 
decay ; the science of the mind is neglected, 
philosophers are found who maintain that ' the 
brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile.' 
It is no longer the moral, religious, and spiritual 
condition of the people that concerns our legis- 
lators ; the physical comfort of the masses is the 
sole object of government. The recent scheme 
of compulsory education ignores moral and re- 
ligious culture, sacrifices heart and soul on the 
altar of material science; the body politic is 
alone cared for, while the soul politic is thrown 
aside, as unworthy the consideration of states- 



men. Men seem to have lost their belief in 
the supernatural, the invisible, the divine, the 
spiritual ; they no longer worship the beautiful 
and good ; virtue, having lost its absolute char- 
acter, is measured by the extent of its usefulness. 
The spirit of materialism has invaded even the 
domain of the masses ; the song of the poet ; is 
it any longer ' a tone of the Memnon statue 
breathing music as the light first touches it? A 
liquid wisdom disclosing to our sense the deep 
infinite harmonies of nature and man's soul?' 
Alas, no ! it is either the cold and drear song 
of a philosophy which relegates the soul to the 
gloomy region of the unknowable, or the mere- 
tricious chant of worship of the senses not ill- 
suited to the choristers of the Temple of Venus. 
We are gravely told by the scientists of the 
present day that belief in the supernatural, which 
is the foundation of all positive religion, is in- 
consistent with the dignity of man, that religion 
is the invention of tyranny, degrades the intel- 
lect, suppresses the aspirations of nature, and is 
antagonistic to the liberty of the people. No 
assertions have less foundation in fact and in 
reason. Religion in its nature and constitution 
is teleological ; it teaches that the end for which 
all creatures are made is not temporal, but 
spiritual and eternal, for Him who is the abso- 
lute, the final cause, as well as the first cause of 
creation ; that the final cause prescribes the law 
which all men must obey; hence it vindicates 
the rights of God, in the government of men. 
The rights of God are perfect, absolute, and the 
foundation of all human rights ; hence the op- 
pression of one creature by another is a violation 
of God's right ; no wrong can be done, no man 
can be deprived of life, liberty, or the pursuit 
of happiness without a violation of God's right. 
Religion, therefore, as the vindicator of the 
rights of God, protects the inalienable rights of 
man, opposes despotism, arbitrary powers, and 
every species of slavery ; it demands for God's 
creatures liberty, political, social, and indi- 
vidual, and such liberty as it demands can never 
degenerate into license, because license neces- 
sarily implies a violation of God's law. 'Re- 
ligion,' says De Tocqueville, ' is the companion 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



5^3 



of liberty in all its battles and triumphs, the 
cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of 
its claims; it is the safeguard of morality, and 
morality is the best security of law, as well as 
the surest pledge of freedom.' Intellectual cul- 
ture, without religion, may gain an ephemeral 
triumph ; it can never perpetuate the freedom 
and the civilization of a great people ; it never 
has raised a fallen empire, or infused new life 
into a superannuated or effete nation. The great 
danger in our own country is from the predom- 
inance of material interests. Democracy has a 
direct tendency to favor inequality and injustice 
because the government must follow the passions 
and interests of the people, and, of course, the 
stronger passions and interests must prevail, and 
these with us are material. There is, therefore, 
no restraint on predominating opinions and 
interests but religion. The fancied antagonism 
between religion and real science, though fre- 
quently asserted, has never been established. 
Religion, on the contrary, ennobles and digni- 
fies science. God calls himself, not only the 
God of goodness, the God of mercy, the God 
of peace, the God of wisdom, the God of jus- 
tice, the God of armies, but also the ' God of 
all knowledge,' i Kings ii. 3. In the contem- 
plation of religion science has a divine aspect, 
not only because to know, to comprehend, is 
the divine trait in man, but because nature is 
the work of God ; substance, form, laws, phe- 
nomena, the essence of life, all have been or- 
dained by him with infinite wisdom and power. 
On his work he has left the impress of himself, 
a splendor which reveals and manifests him. 
Religion invites man to scrutinize the work of 
God, and the wisdom of God in his work; she 
provokes scientific investigation. The grand 
scene described in the Scripture, where God 
caused all the beasts of the earth and fowls of 
the air to pass before Adam ' to see what he 
would call them,' is a magnificent symbol of 
man, in the name of God, taking possession of 
the world by knowledge. The Scriptures are 
full of recognitions of the dignity and divine 
origin of science. Solomon, in the Book of 
Wisdom, says: ' For he hath given me the true 



knowledge of the things that are, to know the 
dispositions of the whole world, and the virtue 
of the elements. The beginning and ending 
and midst of the times, the alterations of their 
courses, and the changes of the seasons. The 
revolutions of the year, and the disposition of 
the stars. The natures of living creations, and 
rage of wild beasts, the force of winds, the rea- 
sonings of men, the diversities of plants, and 
the virtues of roots,' Wisdom vii. 17-20. Again 
in the book of Ecclesiasticus, we find : ' Honor 
the physician for the need thou hast of him ; for 
the Most High has created him. The Most 
High hath created medicines out of the earth, 
and a wise man will not abhor them. The vir- 
tue of these things is come to the knowledge of 
men, and the Most High hath given knowledge 
to men, that he may be honored in His won- 
ders,' Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 1, 4, 6. Religion, 
therefore, neither repels nor fears science, nor 
is there any antagonism between them, and I 
comprehend the disdain with which Cuvier re- 
jects the idea. That great naturalist and man 
of science says : ' I will not stop to reply to those 
who would have us believe the spirit of science 
is antagonistic to that of religion.' Interest in 
your welfare has impelled me to give you this 
parting warning against the most subtle enemy 
to your happiness. It is the most subtle because 
it is gratifying to human vanity, pride, and 
passion, as well as fashionable, to ignore the 
existence of a personal God, and the fact that 
nature forces on our hearts a Creator, history a 
Providence." 

In 1879 ' le was elected a member of the Con- 
stitutional Convention, and delivered probably 
the ablest speech made in that body on behalf 
of maintaining the credit of the State, and keep- 
ing the promises of the Democratic party that 
the bonds issued under the legislation of 1874, 
called Consolidated Bonds, should be paid in 
full. He said : 

" I have taken the trouble to examine the re- 
sources of this State as developed through the 
statistical reports, both of the United States and 
of this State, also of a certain local organization, 
and I am truly surprised to find that, notwith- 



544 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



standing the assessed valuations have been re 
duced since 1865, there has been a gradual and 
steady improvement year by year in the progress 
and development of our products, until now they 
equal the amount produced previous to the war. 
The reduction in the assessed valuation is not 
alone the consequence of high taxation, it is the 
result of causes which extend throughout the 
"United States ; indeed, the cause which extends 
throughout the world. The same depreciation 
of value which has taken place in Louisiana has 
occurred in every State in the Union ; and, in- 
deed, although the present assessment amount 
to only $177,000,000, the real value of the 
property assessed is much greater than the assess- 
ment of 1865, because the value of money and 
its purchasing power was much less in 1865 than 
it is now, so that the $200,000,000 of 1865 
represent property at its present value of about 
$120,000,000. This great depreciation in values 
began in 1S73, an< ^ nas continued from that 
time to the present, and has extended through- 
out the entire country; and when we see the 
progress that has been made here in Louisiana, 
we wonder that such should have been the case 
in the face of such enormous taxation and ter- 
rific expenditure of money that has been made 
the subject of so much discussion here. The 
statistics show that the recuperative power of 
the State is equal to that of any State in the 
Union, and that we can really say of Louisiana 
that she is the great State of Louisiana. It is 
for this very reason that I would hesitate to 
impair that grandeur by consenting to any act 
which any one should consider as violative of 
any promise which this great State has made. 
I hesitate to do it because, notwithstanding it is 
intimated by the gentleman who has opened this 
debate that this is not our government, I hesi- 
tate to do it now because it is our government; 
it is because that which he claims is not our 
government is our government, and has given 
pledges that the public debt should remain un- 
disturbed. Now .what do these statistics show? 
The State assessment in 1877-78 was about 
Si 77,000,000, of which the Parish of Orleans 
represents $109,000,000, sugar parishes (sixteen 



in number), $26,700,000, thirty-six cotton par- 
ishes, $33,400,000, and five parishes .(part cot- 
ton and part sugar), $8,250,000, making a total 
of $177,000,000. The cotton parishes repre- 
sent a production of about $29,000,000; sugar 
parishes, $19,000,000. The position of the 
State in 1S60 was : Assessed values, $420,000,- 
000 ; liabilities outside of property banks, 
$4,700,000. After the war, December 31st, 
1865: Assessed values reduced to $200,000,000; 
liabilities outside of property banks, $5,780,000. 
Levees all destroyed, plantations wrecked, every- 
thing to be replaced and repaired and put in 
order for the purpose of developing the resources 
of the State — that was the condition in which 
the termination of the war found Louisiana. 
Now let us see what it is to-day. There is no 
record of the cotton crop prior to 1872-73; but 
estimating on the basis of the total cotton crop 
of the country, the pro rata of Louisiana cannot 
be put down in the year 1867-68 at over 300,000 ; 
crop of sugar same year 37,645 hogsheads. Be- 
ginning in 1872-73, the records show the State 
produced cotton, 434,000 bales; sugar, 108,520 
hogsheads ; gradually increasing year by year 
until, in 1877-78, we find Louisiana occupying 
the third rank as a cotton-producing State, the 
crop of cotton being 645,000 bales; sugar, 
208,841 hogsheads, within 50,000 hogsheads 
of her average crop before the war, and only 
surpassed by ten crops in all her history as a 
sugar producer. Now, sir, the sugar crop of 
187S-79 was, hogsheads, 208,841 ; pounds, 
241,060,528; barrels of molasses, 320,881. Ten 
crops which exceeded the present one: 1849-50, 
269,800,000 pounds; 1851-52, 257,100,000 
pounds; 1852-53, 368,100,000 pounds; 1S53- 
54, 495,200,000 pounds; 1S54-55, 385,700,000 
pounds; 1855-56, 254,600,000 pounds; 1857- 
58, 307,700,000 pounds; 1S58-59, 414,800,000 
pounds; 1S60-61, 263,200,000 pounds; 1861- 
62, 528,300,000 pounds. Showing ten crops 
since Louisiana has been raising sugar-cane to 
have exceeded the present one, but of the ten 
four crops exceeded it but slightly. The aver- 
age value of ten crops before the war, from 
1852-53 to 1861-62, was $17,314,000. Value of 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF. THE SOUTH. 



S4S 



crop of 1870-79, $18,790,000. Now that shows 
the almost entire recuperation of the State to 
the condition it was before the war, so far as the 
sugar crop is concerned ; and the crop of cotton 
produced is greater than at any time in the his- 
tory of the State. Comparing her cotton statis- 
tics, we find in 1860-61 a crop of 481,000 bales 
against 645,000 in 1877-78. During the same 
period from 1872-73 her rice productions in- 
creased from 52,206 barrels to 140,785 in 1877- 
78, and 157,770 in 1878-79. Now we find the 
value of the principal articles received from the 
interior to be, in 1877-78, $143,000,000 against 
$135,000,000 in 1876-77. Our exports were 
$60,000,000 in 1S76-77, against $84,000,000 
in 1S77-78. In 1877-78 Louisiana produced 
quite $50,000,000 in cotton, sugar, molasses, 
rice, and manufactures. 

Cotton, 645,000 bales ® SF45.00 per bale S29, 000,000 

Sugar, 212,000 hogsheads @ §70.00*; molasses, 310,000 

barrels, @ §13.00 19,000,000 

Rice, 157,000 barrels at about 2,000,000 

Oil and cake 3,000,000 



"The sugar plantations, according to the esti- 
mate of the Louisiana Planters' Association, are 
worth in lands and machinery $40,000,000, em- 
ploying 40,000 laborers, and representing an 
aggregate of 200,000 souls. We have no data 
from which to ascertain the value of the cotton 
lands, producing as they do the third largest 
crop in the Union, but assume it is equal to 
sugar, $40,000,000. 

" Now let us see about the quantity and value 
of the principal products of Louisiana and per- 
centage exported from the State during com- 
mercial year ending 1877. 



Commoditj'. 


Quantity. 


Estimated Value 


Percentage Ex- 
sorted from State. 


Molasses, gallons 


47,189,620 

194,964,000 

11,117,190 

525,000 


1,697,787 
15,646,000 

4,835,938 
27,825,000 


72 
86 
86 
100 



"Above is estimated value of actual produc- 
tion. The sugar, rice, and molasses are crops 
of 1876-77, and cotton is estimated product of 
commercial year ending September 1st, 1877. 

"For the year 1878-79 — Rice, 150,000 bar- 
rels at $12.50 per barrel, about 10,000 barrels 
35 



more than last year, and average price $1.00 
more; sugar, 212,000 hogsheads at $70.00 per 
hogshead; molasses, 310,000 barrels at $13.00 
per barrel, to say nothing of potatoes, oranges, 
fruit, etc. Now as to the cotton produced from 
1872 to 1879, it i s a ver y interesting statement: 



North Carolina . 
South Carolina.. 

Georgia 

Florida 

Alabama 

Mississippi 

Louisiana 

Texas 

Arkansas 

Tennessee 



Season 
1872-73- 



l67,000 
223,000 
507,000 
42,000 
507,000 
66l,0O0 
434,000 
432,000 
253,000 

2 1 1 ,000 



Season 

* s 74-75. 



275,000 
400,000 
550,000 
63,000 
600,000 
550,000 
375,000 
475,000 
335,ooo 
210,000 



Total 3,442,000 3,833,000 4,669,000 4,485,000 4,811,000 



Season 
1875-76. 



260,000 
330,000 
420,000 
60,000 
600,000 
670,000 
650,000 
690,000 
650,000 
339,000 



Season 
1876-77. 



225,000 
375,000 
478,000 
55,000 
560,000 
639,000 
578,000 
735,000 
590,000 
310,000 



Season 
1877-78. 

250,000 
325,000 
575,000 
60,000 
625,000 
675,000 
645,000 
735.000 
6oo,ono 
321,000 



In 1S72 Louisiana ranked as the fourth largest cotton-producing State. 
In 1S74 Louisiana ranked as the sixth largest colton-producing State. 

— Cause : bad season and overflows. 
In 1875 Louisiana ranked as the third largest cotton-producing State. 
In 1876 Louisiana ranked as the fourth largest cotton-producing State. 
In 1877 Louisiana ranked as the third largest cotton-producing State. 

"Now as to manufacturers. In 1865 there 
were two small factories ; now there are six, 
consuming 100,000 tons of seed, exporting in 
1877-78, 3,280,650 gallons of oil, and about 
60,000 tons of cake, representing a value to- 
gether of over $3,000,000. There are now two 
cotton factories, five sugar refineries, soap and 
ice factories, representing $2,000,000 — all since 
the war. Now let us look at the condition of 
Louisiana as compared to the other States of the 
Union, not only in regard to its production, but 
in regard to wealth, in regard to the amount of 
wages paid, each hand engaged in agricultural 
production. I read now from the census of 
1870. [See table on next page.] 

"So that with the exception of some great 
States, Louisiana pays out in wages as large a 
sum as any Northern State, and the rate of wages 
is higher than that which prevails in any State 
except California, Connecticut and New York. 
In view of this state of things, in view of the 
fact that our State lias such vast recuperating 
powers, as shown by these statistics, notwith- 
standing the enormous taxation and extraordi- 
nary expenditure of the past ten years, our State 
will, in the course of a few years, be in such a 
condition of prosperity that we .will all regard 



546 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



the debt of $12,000,000 as a mere bagatelle. 
It has been said that this is not our government, 
and the Constitution of 186S is not our Consti- 



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tution, and that consequently none of the legis- 
lation enacted by any Legislature since 1868 is 
binding upon the people of this State. If the 
Constitution of 1868 is not our Constitution, 
and the law of 1874 not the law of the State, 
obligatory upon the people, by what right are 
we here assembled in convention ? If the act 
of 1874 is not obligatory, for the reason given, 
the act convoking this Convention is, for the 
same reason, void, and we are not assembled 
here by any lawful authority, and the conse- 
quence is we are a mob. There is no power in 
the name of the people to frame a constitution, 



and in the case supposed we hold no legal au- 
thority from the people to act in their behalf, 
but this government, having laws, is at least a 
de facto government. What is the government? 
it is the powers that be ; it is that which exer- 
cises authority, whether it be a despotism or a 
tyranny ; it is that organization which controls 
the territory of the State, holds the reins of 
power to enforce its enactments. It is imma- 
terial whether the power which controls the 
government is constitutional or not ; all de facto 
governments are recognized as having the law- 
ful authority to bind the people governed by 
contract, which contracts have ever been re- 
garded as obligatory upon any succeeding govern- 
ment. Sir, I do not speak unadvisedly. In a 
recent case in the Supreme Court — ' Such was 
the government of England under the Common- 
wealth established upon the execution of the 
King and the overthrow of the loyalists. As far 
as other nations are concerned such a govern- 
ment is treated as in most respects possessing 
rightful authority; its contracts and treaties are 
usually enforced, its acquisitions are retained, its 
legislation is in general recognized, and the 
rights acquired under it are, with few exceptions, 
respected, after the restoration of the authorities 
which were expelled. But under the Constitu- 
tion of the United States there cannot be a de 
facto State government, because the Constitution 
has vested in the Federal government the power 
to determine which is the legal and which is the 
illegal government which may exist in any State, 
and therefore any State government, which is 
recognized by the Federal authority, is neces- 
sarily the dcjurc government, because the Federal 
Constitution, for the purpose of preserving peace 
and tranquillity, has created a tribunal to decide 
what government is legal, and that tribunal is 
the Congress of the United States, and the Con- 
gress of the United States, by the act of 1795, 
has authorized the President of the United 
States, when called upon by the Legislature of a 
State, or by the Governor of the State (if the 
Legislature cannot be convened), to use the mili- 
tary force of the country for the purpose of sup- 
pressing insurrection, and therefore any State 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



547 



government, which is sustained by the military 
power of the United States, is the only legal 
government, whatever may be the opinion, the 
feeling, or the sentiment of those opposed to it. 
If this is not our government, and has not been 
our government since 1868, where has our gov- 
ernment been? and where is it now? and where 
has our State of Louisiana been since 1868? 
Certain it is that the territory, which is called 
Louisiana, is subject to the control of a govern- 
ment, called the government of Louisiana, and 
we have been living under it, and, although we 
may be opposed to it in sentiment, and do not, 
as individuals, feel any disposition to recognize 
it, yet as members of the community, subject to 
that government, we are legally bound by its 
acts. This idea of a dual government is not 
new, and has formed matter for the consideration 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 
the case of Keith vs. Clark. In that case the 
court said : ' The first is, to us, an entirely new- 
proposition, urged with much earnestness by the 
counsel, who argued the case orally for the de- 
fendant. It is in substance that what was called 
the State of Tennessee prior to the sixth of May, 
1 86 1, became, by the ordinance of secession, 
passed on that day, subdivided into two distinct 
political entities, each of which was a State of 
Tennessee. One of them was loyal to the Fed- 
eral government, the other was engaged in re- 
bellion against it. One State was composed of 
the minority, who did not favor secession ; the 
other of the majority, who did. That these two 
States of Tennessee, engaged in a public war 
against each other, to which all the legal rela- 
tions, rights, and obligations of a public was 
attached. That the government of the United 
States was the ally of the loyal State of Tennessee, 
and the Confederate rebel States were the allies 
of the disloyal State of Tennessee. That the 
loyal State of Tennessee, with the aid of -her 
ally, conquered and subjugated the disloyal State 
of Tennessee, and, by right of conquest, imposed 
upon the latter such measure of punishment and 
such system of laws as it chose, and that by the 
law of conquesrit had the right to do this. That 
one of the laws so imposed by the conquering 



State of Tennessee on the conquered State of 
Tennessee was this one, declaring that the issues 
of the bank, during the temporary control of 
affairs by the rebellious State, were to be held 
void, and that, as conqueror and by right of con- 
quest, the loyal State had power to enact this as 
a valid law. It is a sufficient answer to this 
fanciful theory that the division of the State into 
two States never had any actual existence ; that, 
as we shall show hereafter, there has never been 
but one political society in existence, as an or- 
ganized State of Tennessee, from the day of its 
admission to the Union in 1 796 to the present 
time ; that it is a mere chimera to assert that one 
State of Tennessee conquered by force of arms 
another Tennessee, and imposed laws upon it ; 
and, finally, that the logical legerdemain by 
which the State goes into rebellion, and makes, 
while thus situated, contracts for the support of 
the government in its ordinary and useful func- 
tions, which are necessary to the existence of 
social. life, and then, by reason of being con- 
quered, repudiate these contracts, is as hard to 
understand as similar physical performances of 
the stage.' Whatever may be the character of 
this government, whether de facto or de jure, it 
is clear that any contracts entered into by the 
State government, since 1868, are obligatory 
upon the people of the State now, and will be 
obligatory upon the people of the State after 
they have adopted the constitution which we are 
about to make. Mr. Wheaton says : ' As to pub- 
lic debts — whether due to or from the State — a 
mere change in the form of the government, or in 
the person of the ruler, does not affect their ob- 
ligation. The essential power of the State, that 
which constitutes it an independent community, 
remains the same ; its accidental form only is 
changed. The debts being contracted in the 
name of the State, by its authorized agents, for 
its public use, the nation continues liable for 
them, notwithstanding the change in its internal 
constitution. The new government succeeds to 
the fiscal rights and is bound to fulfil the fiscal 
obligations of the former government.' — Inter- 
national Law, p. 30. And the Supreme Court 
of the United States, in the case of Keith vs. 



54§ 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Clark, adopted the language used by Mr. Whea- 
ton as a part of their opinion. This principle 
is further enforced by the Supreme Court in the 
case of Keith vs. Fox, December, 1878, p. 97. 
But, sir, this is our government. Do we not all 
remember that in September, 1S74, the people 
rose up in arms and overthrew the Kellogg govern- 
ment ? Do we not know that the Legislature, 
elected in the fall of 1874, was organized, in 
January, 1875, under Federal bayonets ? Do not 
we know that a Congressional committee was 
sent down here by Congress to ascertain which 
was the legal Legislature of Louisiana, and after 
an investigation was made, a compromise was 
entered into, the celebrated ' Wheeler Compro- 
mise ? ' That under that compromise the Legis- 
lature was recognized, and the first act which it 
passed was a joint resolution, which I will read : 
" ' No. 1. Extra session, convened April 
14th, 1875. Resolved by the General Assembly 
of the State of Louisiajia, That said Assembly, 
without approving the same, will not disturb the 
present State government, claiming to have been 
elected in 1872, known as the Kellogg govern- 
ment, cr seek to impeach the Governor for any 
past official acts, and that henceforth we will 
accord to said Governor all necessary and legiti- 
mate support in maintaining the laws and ad- 
vancing the peace and prosperity of the people 
of this State, and that the House of Representa- 
tives, as to its members, as constituted under the 
award of George F. Hoar, W. Wheeler, W. P. 
Frye, Samuel L. Marshall, Clarkson N. Potter, 
Charles Foster and William Walter Phelps, shall 
remain without change, except by resignation or 
death of members, until a new general election, 
and that the Senate, as herein recognized, shall 
also remain unchanged, except so far as that 
body shall make changes on contest.' This 
compromise was entered into with the approval 
of the present chairman of the committee on 
State debt, and of Mr. Leonard, the then much- 
beloved leader of the people of Rapides, Natchi- 
toches, De Soto and Caddo. The Legislature 
immediately proceeded to pass laws for the relief 
of the delinquent tax-payers, and to provide for 
carrying into effect the act of January, 1874, by 



virtue of. which the present State debt was created. 
The supplemental funding act enumerated certain 
classes of bonds as subject to suspicion, and pro- 
hibited the Funding Board from issuing any 
bonds in exchange for the suspected ones, until 
their validity had been determined by the Su- 
preme Court of the State, and the Supreme 
Court of the State was required to ascertain 
whether these suspected bonds, which amounted 
to about fourteen millions of dollars, had been 
issued in strict conformity to law, and not in 
violation of the Constitution of this State and 
the United States, and for a valid consideration. 
The act further prescribes ' that any person 
assessed for State taxes is authorized in his own 
name to institute suit, or to intervene in any 
suit that may be brought, to test the legality and 
the validity of any issue of bonds of the State.' 
So that any person in the State was at liberty to 
bring a suit to test the validity cf the bond?, or 
to intervene in any suit that might be brought 
by the Attorney-General for that purpose. The 
very fact that certain classes of bonds were enu- 
merated as subject to suspicion is an admission 
that the non-enumerated bonds were free from 
any taint of illegality. The original funding act 
of 1874 created a special tribunal, called the 
Funding Board, for the purpose of deciding the 
question of the legality of the bonds tendered 
for funding. Their authority was respected by 
the supplemental funding act of 1875, DUt a ^ 
the bonds of the State which had been funded 
have been declared legal by the tribunal created 
by the State for the express purpose of investi- 
gating the subject. Prior to the passing of the 
funding act, the Governor of the State appointed 
a committee of citizens to investigate and report 
upon the then existing State debt. That com- 
mittee was composed of Moses Greenwood, 
Robert Watson, B. F. Joubert, Benjamin F. 
Flanders, A. Peralta (then Auditor of the State), 
John R. Clay, Louis Schneider and John A. 
Stevenson, and they reported that the liabilities 
of the State amounted to at least ^23.000,000. 
Prior to that period, on the 2Sth of March, 
1871, the property-owners and tax-pavers of the 
city of New Orleans issued a circular to the 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



549 



world in which they admitted this State owed 
$25, 000,000. Not only that, they warned people 
not to take any bonds other than those enumer- 
ated by them in their circular, thereby inviting 
people to invest in the bonds thus enumerated, 
as good and valid obligations of the State. You 
will see, from the names attached to it, that all 
the leading merchants, bankers and property- 
holders have announced to the world that the 
bonds which have since been funded were legal 
obligations of the State. Since the Nicholls' 
government has been inaugurated the Legislature 
has expressly ratified the funding act of 1874. 
On the 1 2th March, 1877, the Nicholls' General 
Assembly passed an act, the title of which is as 
follows : ' To enforce effectually the constitu- 
tional amendments, proposed January 24th, 
1874, ratified at the general election, held No- 
vember 2d, 1874, relative to the State debt, and 
the funding thereof ; protecting the interests and 
the holders of said bonds by virtue of said 
amendments, and for that purpose to amend and 
re-enact act No. 3, approved January 24th, 1874.' 
Under these circumstances, is it possible for us 
to go back on those declarations made by Legis- 
latures, by citizens and by tax-payers, and npw 
undertake to reject as illegal bonds which would 
have been held to be legal either by the Supreme 
Court of the State or by a special tribunal 
created for the purpose of testing their legality ? 
If we do, it is not unreasonable to suppose (and 
I do not hold it out as a threat) that the credi- 
tors of the State will endeavor to resort to legal 
measures for the purpose of coercing the State. 
I know very well that newspaper lawyers have 
hooted at the idea that this State can be coerced 
by judicial proceedings, but the funding act of 
1874 has been declared by the Supreme Court 
of the United States, in the case of McComb vs. 
The Board of Liquidators, to be a contract be- 
tween the State and the bond-holders. It has 
also been declared that the constitutional amend- 
ments of 1874 were adopted by the people, and 
constituted a part of the contract. The Supreme 
Court of the State has repeatedly held that the 
act of 1874, and the amendments of 1874, irre- 
vocably pledge the faith of the State to the pay- 



ment of the consolidated bonds issued under the 
authority of that act, and the Supreme Court of 
the State has further declared that the amend- 
ments of 1874 had become a part of the consti- 
tution by its ratification by the voters at the 
polls. 'The Pacific Railroad case, Thirtieth 
Annual, 986 : ' It is true that the State cannot 
be sued in the Circuit Court of the United 
States, it is also true that the Circuit Court of 
the United States has no original jurisdiction to 
issue a writ of mandamus, and that it can only 
issue a writ of mandamus in aid of a judgment.' 
Nevertheless, Congress might to-morrow confer 
a jurisdiction upon the Circuit Court of the 
United States to issue an original writ of man- 
damus, and in that event nothing would be easier 
than to coerce the officers of the State to levy 
the five and a-half mill tax mentioned in the act 
of 1874. If any State in this Union chcse to 
do so, it might, for the benefit of its citizens, 
acquire a title to those consolidated bonds, and 
thereupon bring suit in its own name in the Su- 
preme Court of the United States against the 
State of Louisiana, and, after obtaining judg- 
ment, that court would undoubtedly (as it has 
the constitutional authority to do) provide meas- 
ures by which the assessment and collection of 
the five and one-half mills tax could be enforced. 
The State of Louisiana has gone further than 
any other State in the Union in submitting her- 
self, so far as these consolidated bonds are con- 
cerned, to judicial pursuit, for she has expressly 
declared in the constitutional amendments that 
the judicial power may be exercised to enforce 
the collection and payment of the five and a-half 
mills tax. The reason why States^as a general 
rule, can ignore their obligations is that even 
after taxes are collected and paid into the State 
treasury, for the purpose of meeting State debts, 
there is no power known to the law by which the 
Legislature can be compelled to appropriate the 
money in the treasury to the payment of State 
debts. But the constitutional amendment of 
1874 removes this difficulty, because it declares 
that the principal and the interest on these 
bonds shall be paid by the treasurer of the State 
to the holders of the bonds, without any further 



55° 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



legislation or appropriation, and, therefore, the 
treasurer of the State can be reached by a man- 
damus to compel him to pay over the funds 
realized from the five and a-half mills tax. But 
no State of the Union has any sovereign power 
over contracts. The Constitution of the United 
States expressly provides that a State shall im- 
pose no law impairing the obligation of contracts, 
and it has been repeatedly held that this inhibi- 
tion applies as well to the constitutional conven- 
tion as to the enactments of the Legislature. 
Between independent States the refusal to pay 
public debts is a just cause of war. If we were 
an independent State, and undertook to refuse 
payment of these consolidated bonds to British 
holders, a British fleet might soon ascend the 
river for the purpose of enforcing payment at the 
cannon's mouth. But the Constitution of the 
United States undertakes, so far as foreign 
powers are concerned, that no State shall violate 
its obligations, and, therefore, that constitutional 
provision is a substitute for military force, and 
hence, although that same Constitution does not 
allow the State to be sued by private individuals, 
it does allow one State to sue another, and it 
may be the State of New York, in the interest 
of its own citizens, may be authorized to bring 
suit in the Supreme Court of the United States 
against the State of Louisiana, to vindicate the 
rights of such bond-holders as may be citizens of 
the State of New York. I do not undertake to 
say that all this can be done, but I do undertake 
to say that it is within the range of possibilities, 
and as such must be taken into account in con- 
sidering this subject ; for I can imagine no 
greater disgrace to which the State of Louisiana 
could be subjected than that she should refuse 
to pay this consolidated debt, and should be 
afterward coerced to make payment by the judi- 
cial power of the United States. ... It is 
manifest that the State has gained as much, if 
not more, by the scaling than she has lost by 
funding any questionable bonds, and, therefore, 
as this process of funding has so mixed up the 
claims of the respective creditors, every principle 
of justice and policy requires that the statu <]iu> 
shall remain undisturbed, for the majority of the 



committee in their report admit that they can- 
not trace out and identify any particular bond 
after it has gone through the process of funding, 
and hence that part of their report is extraordi- 
nary which recognizes certain bonds as just and 
valid, and proposes to issue new bonds in ex- 
change for them, at a lower rate of interest, it 
is true, than the original bonds were, when it is 
well known that all the bonds thus recognized 
have been surrendered and funded, and- their 
owners cannot be identified. . . . The truth is, 
all that Louisiana needs is rest ; and she will find 
her creditors, in my opinion; disposed to give 
her an opportunity to recuperate, because it is to 
their interest to do so. They may do as the 
creditors of Alabama did, remit the interest for 
one year, take a low rate of interest for five 
years, increase the rate of interest for the next 
five years, and thereafter fix it at four per cent. 
If such an arrangement can be made, taxation 
will be reduced to six and a-half mills on the 
dollar, at the outside. All the finances of the 
State will be placed upon a cash basis, industry 
will be stimulated, and our State will progress 
as rapidly in prosperity as any State can do under 
that general depreciation prevalent, not only 
throughout the United States, but throughout 
the civilized world." 

Mr. Semmes has been selected on several oc- 
casions to be the exponent of the views of his 
Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. In 1871, on 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the accession of 
Pope Pius IX. to the papal throne, he delivered 
an oration at St. Patrick's Hall, New Orleans. 

At a meeting held at St. Alphonsus Hall, 
New Orleans, convoked for the purpose of pro- 
testing against the oppressive measures enforced 
by the German government against the Roman 
Catholics in that country, Mr. Semmes deliv- 
ered an address on Dr. Falk's "May Laws." 
Dr. Falk, the German Minister of Education, 
secured the passage of these laws, which take 
from the Roman Catholic Church the power to 
educate or ordain ministers of religion in Ger- 
man)', except under the supervision and by the 
permission of the State; it was for non-compli- 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



SSi 



ance with them that so many Roman Catholic 
bishops and priests in Germany were fined, im- 
prisoned, or driven into exile. These laws are 
regarded by the whole Catholic world as a wan- 
ton attack on the freedom of religion by a 
government which claims to be the most enlight- 
ened in the world. They now constitute the 
subject-matter of negotiation between Pope Leo 
XIII. and Prince Bismarck. 

Mr. Semmes is President of the School Board 
of the city of New Orleans, having been ap- 
pointed to that position on the accession of the 
Nicholls' government, in 1877. He has six 
children, two girls and four boys; his daughters, 
Myra and Cora, are school-girls at the Convent 
of the Sisters of the Visitation, Georgetown, 
D. C. 



Dr. ROBERT CAMPBELL. 

Georgia. 

tOBERT CAMPBELL, brother of Dr. 
H. F. Campbell, whose sketch appears 
elsewhere in this volume, was born at 
Woodville, near Augusta, Ga., May 1st, 
1826. He was educated at the Rich- 
mond County Academy, Augusta, and com- 
pleted his studies with his brother, Henry 
Fraser Campbell, under the private tutorship of 
Dr. Isaac Bowen, a graduate of Brown Univer- 
sity, Rhode Island. He studied medicine under 
Dr. Joseph A. Eve and Dr. H. F. Campbell, 
and entered the Medical College of Georgia, 
now the Medical Department of the University 
of Georgia, in 1845, graduating thence M. D. 
March 4th, 1847. He was Assistant Demon- 
strator of Anatomy in the medical college from 
1848 to 1854, and succeeded his brother, Dr. 
H. F. Campbell, in the demonstratorship in 
1854. In the same year he received the honor- 
ary degree of A. M. from Oglethorpe University. 
He settled in Augusta and commenced the prac- 
tice of his profession in association with his 
brother in 1847, ar >d with him conducted an 
extensive and lucrative practice until i860, his 
brother practising principally as a surgeon and 




he as a physician, but giving special attention 
to obstetrics and the diseases of children. In 
1853, in conjunction with his brother, he estab- 
lished the "Jackson Street Hospital and Surgi- 
cal Infirmary for Negroes," a convenient and 
comfortable place of abode for the colored 
people during the treatment necessary for surgi- 
cal and chronic diseases. An institution of this 
kind had become a great desideratum in ante- 
bellum times, as there was no convenience for 
the treatment of this class when afflicted with 
chronic disease. Dr. H. F. Campbell was the 
surgeon to this institution, and Dr. Robert 
Campbell the physician. It afforded accommo- 
dation for fifty patients, male and female, and 
provided especially for the treatment of surgical 
operations, chronic diseases and diseases of 
women, and an obstetric ward was fitted up for 
cases requiring it. He was Lecturer on Clinical 
Medicine in Jackson Street Hospital, Augusta, 
and during his connection with the Medical 
College of Georgia was tendered the chair of 
Anatomy in four different colleges, an honor 
more to be valued in those days than now, when 
colleges of all kinds are so numerous. In i860 
he was appointed Adjunct Professor to the chair 
of Obstetrics in the Medical College of Georgia, 
occupied by Professor Joseph A. Eve, and in 
connection with that chair lectured upon the 
anatomy appertaining to obstetrics and gynae- 
cology, embryology and the diseases of children. 
A few years afterwards, on account of ill health, 
he retired from his position in the college, and 
relinquished the active practice of his profession 
in Augusta, although he still continues, at the 
solicitation of many of his old patients, to prac- 
tise to some extent in the vicinity of his resi- 
dence, near Augusta. He was one of the 
founders and first members of the Medical As- 
sociation of Georgia, and one of the earliest 
members of the American Medical Association, 
having become a permanent member at its 
meeting in Boston, in 1849. He edited, con- 
jointly with his brother, Professor Henry F. 
Campbell, from 1S57 to 1S61, five volumes of 
the Southern Medical and Surgical Journal, one 
of the oldest medical periodicals in the South. 



552 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



Since his retirement he has been engaged in 
farming in Richmond county, Ga., a few miles 
from Augusta. 

Dr. Robert Campbell has promulgated new 
views as to the pathology and treatment of epi- 
demic dysentery, which received the commen- 
dations of various journals in America and 
England, and were verified by the successful 
experience of many practitioners and had a 
decided influence in moulding the opinions and 
practice of the profession on that subject in the 
South. As to its pathology, he taught that in 
dysentery there are two co-existing and co- 
extensive conditions, as manifested by their co- 
equal symptomatic results, viz. : spinal irritation 
and an inflammation in the mucous membrane 
of the large intestine. The two main points- of 
treatment advocated being the administration 
of quinine for the cerebro-spinal or paroxysmal 
febrile element, and the preparation familiarly 
known to the profession as "the oil and turpen- 
tine emulsion," for the local disorder, special 
indications in individual cases being met by the 
usual appropriate remedies. His views as to the 
action of quinine give a more satisfactory ex- 
planation on this point perhaps than any yet 
advanced — a subject on which systematic writers 
are still at variance. In 1S5S he published the 
proposition that "Quinine exercises its primary 
action upon the middle or fibrinous coat of the 
blood-vessels, and that upon its influence in that 
tissue all its observed effects depend," and in 
further elucidation of these views, in an essay 
presented to the Medical Association of Geor- 
gia, April, 1869, he advances the following 
propositions: 1st. That quinine does not .act 
primarily upon the nervous system; 2d. That its 
effects upon the nervous system are neither those 
of a stimulant nor of a sedative; 3d. That its 
manifest uniform phenomena are at variance in 
character with those of any known neurotic; 
4th. That there is no concordance between the 
degree of its apparent influence over the nervous 
system, and the size of the dose, as obtains with 
all neurotics; 5th. That its phenomena arc- 
varied in character and degree, more in accord- 
ance with an associate condition of the vascular 



than of the nervous system; 6th. That its action 
is primarily exerted upon the vascular system by 
a specific agency directed to the fibrinous coat 
of the vessels and having the power of con- 
densing or contracting that tissue — probably by 
chemical union with its elements, similar to that 
of the vegetable astringents. By virtue of this 
property it overcomes all engorgements of the 
vascular system — by constringing the vessels. 
Thus it relieves entirely or partially all those 
diseases which depend upon engorgement, re- 
sulting from vascular exhaustion or debility, 
such as would proceed from relaxation in the 
middle coat, whether occurring in a vascular 
organ, as lung, spleen, or liver, or in a nervous 
centre, as brain, spinal marrow, or ganglion ; 
7th. That this interpretation is the only one 
which can furnish a satisfactory explanation of 
the phenomena consequent upon the adminis- 
tration of quinine. 

His contributions to medical literature have 
been numerous. Among them may be men- 
tioned "Anatomical Peculiarity in regard to the 
Nutritious Canals in the Long Bones," Southern 
Medical and Surgical Journal, October, 1848; 
"The Morbific Influence of Intestinal Worms," 
ibid., June, 1851 ; " Case of Senile Gangrene of 
the Inferior Extremities," ibid., August, 1851; 
"Death from Ovarian Tumor in a Child," ibid., 
October, 1851; "Report on Empirical Reme- 
dies," Transactions of the Medical Association 
of Georgia, .April, 1852; "Inverted Toe-nail: 
Treatment without Operation," Southern Medi- 
cal and Surgical Journal, February, 1857; 
" Gun-shot Wound of the Hand," ibid., July, 
1857; "Dysentery, its Pathology and Treat- 
ment," Clinical Lectures, pp. 65, ibid., Decem- 
ber, 1857, February and March, 1858; "On the 
Treatment of Typhoid Fever," ibid., July, 1858 ; 
"Quinine, the Fibrinous Coat of the Blood- 
vessels, the Seat of its Ultimate Therapeutical 
Action," ibid., August, 1859. 

Dr. Robert Campbell possesses a fine type of 
mind, and has displayed considerable genius as 
an artist and painter, while he inherits in a re- 
markable degree the poetic genius of his mother, 
and his grandfather, Joseph Eve. During his 



REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE SOUTH. 



553 



connection with medical institutions he was 
distinguished especially for his skdl, accuracy 
and comprehensive knowledge as a teacher of 
anatomy and as an able and attractive lecturer 
on clinical medicine. Never were two brothers 
more identified with each other in tastes, habits 
and pursuits than Dr. Robert Campbell and his 
brother, Dr. Henry F. Campbell : educated at 
the same academy and under the same private 
tutor, they both chose the medical profession, 
Robert following his brother in the various steps 
in the medical college. Associated together in 
practice and in the establishment and conduct 
of the Jackson Street Hospital, they were also 
for many years co-editors of the Southern Medi- 
cal and Surgical Journal. Besides being joined 
in marriage to two sisters, they have thus been | 



united professionally and socially in a remark- 
able degree, and it is not surprising that their 
opinions, tastes, habits and dispositions have 
displayed a marked similarity. 

He married, in June, 1848, Caroline Frances, 
daughter of Amory Sibley, a well-known mer- 
chant of Augusta, and sister of Mrs. Henry F. 
Campbell, and has ten children. His eldest 
son, Dr. Amory Sibley Campbell, is now Dr. 
H. F. Campbell's associate in the practice of 
medicine and surgery in Augusta, Ga., a well- 
known contributor to some of the leading 
medical periodicals in this country, lately 
President of the Augusta Medical Society, 
and formerly Demonstrator of Anatomy in 
the Medical Department of the University of 
Georgia. 



THE END. 


















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